A Sri Lankan-origin Australian couple and their two young sons are among dozens of Australians still unaccounted for after last week’s catastrophic flooding along the Nepal-Tibet border, the Daily Mirror reported, citing Australian broadcaster ABC.
Chandrasekaran Muralitharan, 47, his wife Shylaja Muralitharan, 42, and their sons Ashwin, 14, and Aarush, 11, were travelling with a Himalayan Glacier Adventures tour group when contact with them was lost.
The family lives in north-western Sydney. Chandrasekaran is originally from Kopay in Jaffna, and he and his wife are first-generation Sri Lankan migrants to Australia. Their two sons were born into the Australian Tamil diaspora.
Last contact was on the morning of the disaster
The family was on a pilgrimage to the Mount Kailash region when the flood struck on 26 August. Relatives said their last contact came that morning, when the family was preparing to have breakfast before travelling toward the border for immigration formalities.
Their family has been unable to reach them since. Floods and landslides destroyed roads, electricity supplies and communications across large parts of the affected region.
The Muralitharans were travelling with a tour group that included 15 Australians. Members of the group are believed to have been near Rasuwagadhi, close to the Nepal-China border, when the disaster struck.
Australia counts 43 unaccounted for
Australian authorities said on Monday that 43 Australians remained unaccounted for after the floods. Many were pilgrims travelling through Nepal toward Tibet to visit Mount Kailash, a route that draws Hindu, Buddhist and Jain pilgrims from across the region each year.
Shylaja’s sister told Australian media that relatives were continuing to seek information from authorities and from the tour operator.
Context
Sri Lanka’s Foreign Ministry said in the first days after the disaster that no Sri Lankan casualties had been reported. The Muralitharans travel on Australian documentation, so a family of Sri Lankan origin would not appear in Sri Lanka’s own consular count — a distinction worth noting when reading national tallies of the missing.
Nepal’s disaster authority said on Tuesday that 583 foreigners were among the missing there, with a further 261 foreigners missing on the Chinese side. The overall death toll across Nepal and Tibet has passed 1,000.
The Daily Mirror did not report whether Australian or Sri Lankan authorities have made contact with the tour operator, whether any of the 15 Australians in the group have been located, or whether the family had registered their travel with Australian consular services.
