Missing sisters in video posted before Nepal flood

A woman desperate for news of two missing family members says she saw them in a TikTok video posted just hours before the Nepal flash flood hit.

Tulshi Patel's mother, Hemangini Jitendra Patel, and her aunt, Hema Sunil Amin, were on a pilgrimage and had planned to travel into Tibet, but are now among the thousands of people unaccounted for.

"We did our own deep-dive research and we found a TikTok video that verified and showed my mum and auntie and three other people from the tour at the border waiting to cross, I guess, that the local Nepalese tour guide had made," she told radio station LBC.

The pharmacist from Milton Keynes said the journey had been on the pair's "bucket list".

Tulshi Patel said she last spoke to them on Monday and had received a photo of them on Tuesday, adding that their last known location had come from a GPS signal from the tour group at a place called Friendship Bridge.

Of the video, she said: "It was Wednesday morning, just before 06:00, Nepal time.

"They were supposed to have crossed the border on Tuesday, but I guess due to weather conditions or whichever it was, they got delayed and unfortunately crossed over on Wednesday."

The flood is believed to have happened after a magnitude 5.2 seismic event occurred near the border between Nepal and China on Wednesday at 08:37 local time, according to the United States Geological Survey.

Tulshi Patel said her mother and aunt had been in "good health" and had "prepared well for the trip".

"This was something that they were both looking forward to. They'd been talking about this from the beginning of the year."

Of her family's efforts to locate their missing relatives, she added: "We've messaged them both in the hopes that maybe we'll see a tick to say they've seen it or read it.

"We've not given up, but… from our end, all we can do is research, but we just need kind of eyes and ears there from our side to basically get them out, get all of them out and safe."

She said the family had considered travelling to Nepal to join search efforts but had decided against it as they did not know how close they could get to the region.

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