BENGALURU: A batch of 17 Karnataka-based trekkers hitherto stuck in the Nepal-Tibet region landed at Kempegowda International Airport (KIA), Bengaluru, on Tuesday, having enacted a fortuitous escape from the flash floods in the terrain by the breadth of just a day. The 17 were part of a larger group of 23, with two more Karnataka civilians scheduled to land in Bengaluru on Wednesday, September 2.
The civilians flew in on Nepal Airlines flight RA 225, a standard civilian flight operated by an Airbus A320. They had gone to Tibet as part of an informal trekking group, with the majority of them having had no prior trekking experience, having availed the services of Nepalese trekking company Moon Himalaya Adventure. “We missed the disastrous flood by just a day. We left our hotel in Nyalam (a Tibetan border town about 150 kilometres from Nepal’s capital Kathmandu) just a day before the flood swept the area away. The day after, we came to know that the entire hotel building had been obliterated by the flood water,” said Shrinivasulu Yadati, a Bengaluru-based returnee, to TNIE.
According to the returnees, their flight was a regular flight that was part of their initial itinerary, booked months in advance, making any state government intervention redundant. “We spoke to Chief Minister DK Shivakumar via a video call, and he enquired about our safety,” said a returnee.
According to the group, besides phone calls from Karnataka State Disaster Management Authority (KSDMA) officials, there was not any tangible help from the state government, mostly owing to their physical absence in the region leaving not much room for direct assistance to begin with. “We asked for some assistance especially because our journey to Kathmandu from Darchen (Tibet), before boarding our flight, involved traversing through perilous roads, but that is not an area in which the state government, understandably, could help. The state government was coordinating only via phone calls; nothing beyond that,” Yadati told TNIE, adding that a state government official received them in Kathmandu before their flight.
Yadati corroborated that the group had informed the KSDMA about their safety. KSDMA commissioner S Honnamba, who is coordinating rescue operations geared towards stranded Karnataka civilians stuck in the region, was aware of the group’s arrival, and had informed TNIE accordingly.
