Sydney family and friends of Australians still missing amid the destruction in Nepal have said they “won’t give up on hope” as they pray that the lost Aussies will return home.
Of the (at least) 39 Australians the Nepalese authorities have said were still unaccounted for on Friday afternoon, the majority were Hindu Australians embarking on the sacred Mount Kailash pilgrimage, with many from Sydney’s outer northwest suburbs.
Umesh, 55, and Krishna Sharma, 50, were planning to cross the Nepal-Tibet border on the pilgrimage.
The Pemulwuy husband and wife were travelling with a group of about 10 Australians with the Himalayan Glacier tour company before disaster struck.
Their son, 23-year-old Chitrak, said he was holding onto hope they managed to survive.
“My hope is that they found out there was a flood coming … and they decided to find higher ground,” he said, describing his parents as his “everything”.
“Anything I’ve ever wanted to do, I’ve wanted to do for them. If I wanted to be successful, it was to give them everything they wanted.”
Chitrak said he last spoke to his parents on Tuesday night, when they were still in Kathmandu. He now waits with bated breath for good news.
“I just want to know where they are,” he said.
Other Australians on that same trip with the Sharmas include the Cherrybrook-based Iyer family: mother Lakshmi, father Sreedharan, and sons Rishab, 24, and Rudhra, 21.
Chitrak described the young men as “brothers” and said the Iyers were well-liked across The Hills district.
Neighbours Margaret and Barry Young described them as a “lovely family”.
“The (Iyer family) are just lovely people, anyone will tell you that,” Ms Young said.
On that same trip were the Muralitharan family: Shylaja and Chandrasekaran with their sons Ashwin, 11, and Aarush, 14.
Based in Sydney’s northwest, the family had been training for the “journey of a lifetime” and have been described as “beautiful” people.
Neighbour Sam Ghosh said he “couldn’t sleep for days” and that it was too sad to even glance at the Muralitharans’ front door. His wife, Shy, said the entire ordeal was a “nightmare”.
“If they have reached higher ground, someone will be there to rescue them… I won’t give up on hope” she said.
The Muralitharans’ other neighbour, Ragu Kanagaraj, called them “the kindest people” he’d ever seen.
On the same trip were Woodcroft husband and wife Venkatraman Balakrishnan, 52, and Chitra Venkatraman, 46.
Their two sons, aged 19 and 12, remained in Sydney. Chaplains from the Hindu Council of Australia have been supporting the boys, who don’t have other relatives in Sydney.
They told The Telegraph that Mr Balakrishnan and Ms Venkatraman were beloved and valued community members who ran a catering business supplying vegetarian Indian dishes.
“Before they left, a regular client asked if they could cater for an event the day before they flew out,” the chaplain said.
“The couple said: ‘we’re supposed to be going away, but because you’re a great customer we’ll make it work’. And they cooked all the food on the Saturday and then flew out on the Sunday.”
Among the 39 Australians unaccounted for is Parramatta-based IT worker Gopi Krishna Naidu Agastya and Sydney woman Sumi Adhikari, whose husband Nava Pandey has travelled to Nepal since the devastating tragedy.
But there was also ecstasy amid agony on Friday as Australian woman Cara Severino, 26, made contact with her parents to say she was alive.
Ms Severino had been hiking the Langtang trek when her group became stranded as floodwaters cut communications across the area.
Her parents, Debbie and Frank Severino, said on Friday evening: “Our daughter Cara Severino has made contact with us this morning … We eagerly await more information about her safe return. We praise God that she has been able to make this brief contact with us. Our thoughts and prayers are with all the families awaiting news.”
Experienced South Coast bushwalker Michael Keats is another Australian who remains unaccounted for.
In Strathfield on Friday, hundreds of Nepalese-Australians gathered in a show of support for everyone affected in Nepal.
A Nepalese flag waved in the wind, Nepalese music played, and candles laid out in the shape of the Nepalese flag were lit.