For the families and friends of people who went out of contact after the flood on the Nepal–Tibet border.
A support page for people waiting for news about someone who went missing in the flood of 26 August 2026 on the Nepal–Tibet border. It was made by someone doing the same waiting.
Waiting without an answer is a state of its own, and it wears a person down differently from grief that already has a name. You are stuck between two impossible modes: carrying on as if nothing had happened, or mourning someone who may be alive. Neither works, and that is not weakness — it is how this state is built.
Because the worst part of this kind of waiting is being told to hold it together and think positive. Nothing here promises a good ending or asks anyone to "let go". Here you are allowed to hope and to dread at the same time — both, not either-or.
The primary language of this page is Ukrainian. The English version is a translation and may contain inaccuracies; where the two differ, the Ukrainian text governs.
At 8:30 local time on 26 August the group arrived at the border crossing. The Kyirong (Tibet) — Rasuwagadhi (Nepal) crossing. After that contact was lost.
Search and rescue is still officially under way: Nepal is looking for survivors, not only for bodies. No shift to recovery — to raising and identifying bodies only — has been announced.
In parallel, DNA identification of unidentified victims began on 31 August, and it covers foreign nationals. Nepal has opened an official database of photographs of unidentified bodies and published the procedure for repatriating foreign nationals' remains.
For families: wait, and don't give in to rumours and manipulation. Check official channels only.
In detail, with sources and dates — in the news digest at the top of the page.
A neutral description of the place and the procedure. This is about the terrain and the order of things, not about where one particular group ended up.
The border complex is split in two by the terrain.
The Chinese side — the port of Kyirong. It sits on a high reinforced plateau above the canyon.
The Nepali side — Rasuwagadhi and Timure. It sits below, right beside the bed of the Bhotekoshi.
Getting from one to the other is a descent. People clear the Chinese terminal up top, then move down to the Nepali one, where they are processed for entry and board transport to Kathmandu.
When you file a request, ask straight away for its reference number. Without it, every next call starts from scratch.
The addresses are collected from official sources. You can copy them all into a single message — with the name in Latin letters, date of birth, passport number, and the date and place the person was last seen.
It has been two days. What is going on with your body and your head right now is not a breakdown.
Counting from 26 August, 8:30. This is not a forecast for you personally — it is a map drawn from research on how people move through a disaster and through waiting without an answer.
The body switches every system on for threat. People call, write, arrange things, barely sleep and barely notice it.
In this phase decisions come easily — and that is exactly why it is easy to promise too much, quit your job or buy a ticket to a place no plane is flying. Your sense of risk works worse in these hours than it feels like it does.
The tiredness is already there but you cannot feel it. It seems you could go on like this for a long time.
This is where the sleep debt builds that you will have to pay back later. Sleep in these two days is not weakness — it is a reserve for what comes next.
Exhaustion arrives that was not there yesterday. Sleep gets worse, intrusive images and thoughts show up without asking permission.
This is not your condition getting worse. It is what was already in your body becoming noticeable once the mobilisation switched off.
From day three, acute reactions get their own name in the classificationThe acute reaction windowDSM-5 counts acute stress disorder from day three up to one month. Before day three such reactions are not considered a disorder at all — they are an expected response to the event.DSM-5-TR, criteria for acute stress disorder: duration from 3 days to 1 month. Review: Merck Manual Professional, 2026. — not because the person has got worse, but because until that point such reactions are not considered a disorder at all.
People you know stop writing. The news drops out of the feeds. Life around you goes back to normal, and yours does not.
This is the riskiest stretch. Not because it is worse inside, but because there is less support outside.
In the disaster phase model this stage is called disillusionmentThe disillusionment phaseAfter a short lift, when there is plenty of help and everyone is close by, comes the drop: optimism turns into fatigue, the wider community goes back to its own life, and those affected start to feel abandoned. It is at this stage that demand for psychological help rises.The Zunin/Myers disaster phase model, adopted by SAMHSA (DeWolfe, 2000; SAMHSA DTAC). Used in crisis counselling programmes in the US.. It is predictable — so you can prepare for it in advance.
What to do now, while you still have strength. Ask two or three people to write to you in a week and in two weeks. Not “if you need it” — have them set a reminder on their phone today.
In most people the symptoms gradually ease by this time on their own. Not in everyone — and that is not about willpower.
One month is a boundary in the classification: after it the state is described differently and treated differently. It is not a verdict and not a diagnosis you give yourself. It is a reason not to keep carrying it alone if sleep has not come back and the images have not let go.
About half the people who later develop a lasting condition go through a marked acute reaction in the first month. The other half do not. There is no way to predict it in yourself, so the guide is simple: if you are not sleeping and not functioning after a month, see a specialist.
This is the main difference between an uncertain loss and any other. There is no date after which it gets easier, because there is no event to count from.
Grief here does not move through stages and does not finish — it stays suspended for as long as the not knowing lasts. This is described and it has a name, and that is exactly why advice meant for an ordinary loss does not work here.
There is one practical conclusion: plan not to “hold out until the news”, but to live with an open question. Work, sleep, people, ordinary life — these are not a betrayal of your waiting, they are what makes the waiting possible.
The models above describe typical trajectories for groups of people, not for one particular person. Your own course may be different — faster, slower, with steps back. That is also within the range of normal.
Open whatever matches.
Open whatever matches. Leave the rest unread.
Open whatever matches. The rest is not going anywhere.
Your body decided faster than you did. Cold hands, short breath.
It will pass on its own, even if you do nothing. But it can pass faster.
You lie down and do not fall asleep. The bed has become a place of struggle, not of sleep.
The insomnia here is not your fault. Your body is standing guard, because it is waiting for a call.
You do not have to be all right today. You have to get to tomorrow.
Not a plan for your life. A plan for the day. In the morning the list resets.
This is the twentieth time that picture has gone round in your head. It hasn't got any more accurate.
This isn't helplessness. Your head is looking for a way out where there isn't one yet, and it can't stop on its own.
You can neither let go nor settle. Both options are open.
This is the hardest thing described on this page. And it wears you down more than any clear news would.
The swing doesn't mean you're doing something wrong. It means you're honestly holding both possibilities — because both really are open.
Something warm came back to you. And straight away, tears.
This is what frightens people most: it feels as if the body already knows something. It doesn't.
The thought came on its own. Nobody called for it.
It comes to almost everyone who waits. And it decides nothing in advance.
You refresh the chat looking for news. What you get is other people's fear.
This is not weakness. Your brain is demanding information that nobody has yet.
The images come back on their own. Especially when you close your eyes.
It does not mean something is wrong with you. This is how visual memory reacts to what it has seen.
You do not have to know the right words. There are none.
The person beside you does not need explanations. They need someone there, and someone to take over the everyday things.