American missing in wake of Nepal floods contacted, Nepali officials tell CBS News

Kathmandu, Nepal — One of the dozens of U.S. nationals missing in the wake of the devastating flash floods on the Nepal-Tibet border has been contacted, Nepali government officials confirmed to CBS News on Tuesday. 

About 85 Americans were still listed as missing, and word that rescuers have managed to contact one could bring hope to thousands of families around the world desperately waiting for word of loved ones.

CBS News was still working to confirm details of the case, and it was unclear who the U.S. national contacted by Nepali agencies might be, where they were located or what condition they were in. 

More than 4,600 people were still believed to be missing and at least 1,050 confirmed dead in Nepal alone as of Tuesday, authorities said. Chinese authorities have confirmed that 16 people were killed in Tibet, and more than 550 remained missing on that sided of the border.

An official document compiled by the Nepal Tourism Board said that as of Monday evening, rescuers were “in contact” with five foreign nationals among the thousands of people missing, including the one unidentified American, three people from Spain and one Belgian. The document said 315 foreign nationals had been rescued in total.

CBS News spoke earlier this week with the only two Americans known to have been rescued so far from the disaster zone in Nepal, Anjana Raja and Pattabiraman Venkatesan. The San Francisco Bay Area couple were on a pilgrimage to Tibet when the disaster struck, and they told CBS News on Friday they were headed for the Nepali border when what looked like a tsunami came barreling down the valley while they were in a tour bus. 

“It’s like 60, 70 feet, it looked like a tsunami, but dark black,” Venkatesan told CBS News. “I could see this monster thing coming down. At that point I didn’t know if it was water. I thought it was fire, forest fire, honestly.”

The couple made it out of the bus and ran for higher ground, eventually reaching a mountaintop where they spent the night in a goat shed with other survivors before being airlifted to safety the following day.

About 600 hydroelectric power plant workers are among the missing in Nepal, believed to be trapped inside several projects in the disaster area, according to the Himalayan nation’s prime minister.

Work by search and rescue teams to clear mud-blocked tunnels to reach the workers has continued apace, amid concern that oxygen inside could run out. 

It was almost a week ago that a mountainside and glacier collapse in the Himalayas triggered avalanches in Tibet and Nepal, which in turn triggered the devastating flash floods.

Recovery teams have found bodies in riverbeds far downstream. No one in the region can remember the sacred Trishuli River ever swelling higher than it did last week. 

Rohit Tamang, 22, has spent his entire life in his home perched above the Trishuli. He told CBS News he watched helplessly when the waters surged last Wednesday, and he’s not leaving now, “because my childhood memories are here.”

Nepal’s foreign minister told CBS News on Tuesday that authorities believe many foreigners may have been hiking in the mountains when the disaster struck, leaving them marooned without communications, but possibly safe. 

He was hopeful that, rather than mud and water, more good news could soon come down from the Himalayas.