Kolkata: For the families of 32 Bengal travellers caught in Nepal’s flash-flood disaster, the Ho Chi Minh Sarani office of Cholo Jai Travel Club has become a centre of hope, anxiety and frantic rescue efforts. The Kolkata-based travel agency, which took a group of 30 tourists and two tour managers on a 13-day Kailash-Manasarovar trip, has kept its office open round-the-clock since Wednesday.Employees have been working overtime, attending calls and visits from anxious family members after communication with the group was abruptly lost following the flash flood. Family members of the missing tourists and the staff of the travel agency have been desperately trying to re-establish contact. But there has been no success achieved so far. Samrat Tours & Travels, the agency’s Nepal-based partner, has deployed a private helicopter to search the flood-hit area. The tourists, however, could not be located. More than 1,000 people have been reported missing in China and Nepal.“We have heard from the family of Mousumi Ganguly that she has been rescued. But we have no confirmation from official agencies and do not know where she has been kept. There is no news yet of other members from our Nepal partner. Neither have we received any information from the Nepal Tourism Board or the Nepal Consulate in Kolkata,” said Dibyojyoti Basu, the agency’s owner.The travel agency has sent four staff members to Kathmandu to liaise with employees of Samrat Tours & Travels. “We can’t proceed to the disaster site, beyond Kathmandu. It is best to put up at Kathmandu to get information,” said Basu, a former journalist who founded the agency in 2002. This year, these tourists were among the first batches to get permission for the pilgrimage to Kailash-Manasarovar in the Tibet Autonomous Region of China. They had left Kolkata on Aug 21 and were scheduled to return on Sept 3.Their journey ended abruptly in Rasuwa, north of Kathmandu and close to the Tibetan border, when the Bhote Koshi river was hit by a flash flood. They were preparing to complete immigration formalities and cross into Tibet when the disaster struck. “I was shocked to see visuals of the building being swept,” Basu said. All communication was lost with the tourists. “We are in contact with the embassy. There has been no news yet,” said Manish Singh, an associate at the agency’s city office. The agency has also been in constant touch with the Indian embassy and the tourists’ families. Efforts are underway to bring the stranded Bengal tourists home.
