BENGALURU: A batch of 17 Karnataka residents, who escaped the recent flash floods in Nepal–Tibet region by a narrow margin, landed at Kempegowda International Airport (KIA) in Bengaluru on Tuesday. Two more members of the group of 23 trekkers are scheduled to arrive in the city on Wednesday.
The group arrived in Bengaluru by Nepal Airlines flight RA 225. They had gone to Nepal as part of an informal trekking group, of which the majority lacked trekking experience. They had availed the services of a Nepalese trekking company named Moon Himalaya Adventure.
“We missed the disastrous flood by just a day. We left our hotel in Nyalam (a Tibetan border town about 150km from Nepal capital Kathmandu) a day before the calamity struck the area. On the next day, we came to know that the entire hotel building was swept away by the floodwater,” Shrinivasulu Yadati, who was part of the group and a Bengaluru resident, told TNIE.
The group said they returned on a regular flight booked months in advance as part of their itinerary.
They said they received phone calls from Karnataka State Disaster Management Authority (KSDMA) officials, but did not require any help from the state government, as they were away from the areas affected by the flash floods. “We spoke to Chief Minister DK Shivakumar on a video call, and he enquired about our safety,” said a member of the group.
“We asked for some assistance, especially because our journey to Kathmandu from Darchen (Tibet) to board our flight involved traversing through perilous roads, but that was not an area in which the state government, understandably, could help. The government was coordinating only via phone calls, nothing beyond that,” Yadati said, adding that a state government official received them when they arrived in Kathmandu.