The encountering of Britons losing in Nepal: Households in agony as they anxiously expect explanations on their family members after lethal 'tsunami from the sky'

British families have been in agony trying to contact loved ones missing in Nepal’s deadly ‘tsunami from the sky’.

As rescuers battled to reach villages wiped out by Wednesday’s 600ft surging wall of mud, rock and ice, dozens of Britons remain unaccounted for.

Relatives spent Thursday in tortuous limbo, frantically checking phone trackers and trying to call devices that would not connect.

They spent the day desperately trying to contact anyone in the region who could help while some took it upon themselves and flew from Britain to the disaster zone.

The monster mudslide swept away roads, bridges and homes in seconds, while also knocking out power lines and mobile phone masts.

The discovery of a group of 31 tourists, none of whom are British, alive in the district of Rasuwa, raised hopes that all is not lost.

But the official death toll of 359 is certain to rise, with more than 1,000 people including 540 foreigners now reported missing.

Many of the affected areas are only accessible by helicopters, the authorities close to the border with Tibet said, and so have yet to be explored. It will take weeks to reopen the roads, experts warned.

Nabhi Das from Streatham in south London also remains unaccounted for, family members confirmed 

Sarada Simkhada, who is a senior nurse at the Darent Valley Hospital in Dartford, left for Nepal last Saturday to take part in a pilgrimage and has not been heard from since the floods 

Leena Bector, 53, from Slough, Berkshire, has also not been heard of after travelling to the region to see the Himalayas

Sunil Amin, from Croydon, described the ‘horrible, horrible feeling’ of repeatedly trying to phone his wife, Hema Amin, 63, who was on a pilgrimage with Alpine Eco trek from Nepal to Tibet with her sister.

‘I keep trying to call her. I’ve been trying, trying, trying,’ he said. ‘It just rings out or doesn’t get through. I’m devastated.’

A family of four from Surrey including a 13-year-old schoolgirl were on the same tour which crossed into Tibet at the exact moment disaster struck. 

A poignant last photo of the group laughing and smiling in front of their tour bus emerged last night.

Pramod Poudel, who runs a Nepalese street food company in Sussex, sobbed as he told of the torture of his wife Sumitra, mother Tulisa, brother Pradip and uncle Madav all being missing.

His father Purusottam has been found alive.

Before he got on a plane to head east last night, Mr Poudel said: ‘I have seen pictures of where my home town used to be, where my family used to live – my mum, my dad, my brother, my wife…there’s nothing there.

‘The bridges are broken so no one can get there.’

A drone shot shows ruined properties coated with mud

The view down a street of Devighat Village on Thursday

Rescue workers repair a damaged road leading to Gyirong Port

Prime Minister Andy Burnham pledged British help on Thursday, while King Charles and Queen Camilla declared they were ‘heartbroken’.

Nepalese officials branded the disaster zone ‘devastation beyond imagination’ after the torrent of mud, rock and frozen water thundered down the Rasuwa valley swallowing and smashing whole villages.

There were also warnings another disaster was ‘imminent’ as experts predicted further mass flooding in the snow-capped region.

Kabita Dhungana, deputy mayor of Nuwakot district, begged ‘please help us’, as she told the BBC how ‘family members, children, parents are missing, and this is a very critical bad situation…Everything, basic needs are destroyed, so please help us. We are really in need of help.’

Photographs of the valley showed a sinister moonscape of mud where colourful homes once stood.

Harrowing videos emerged including one of workers in a desperate race of survival as they scrambled up a hill as the churning wall of floodwater and debris came crashing towards them.

The Nepalese military is struggling to reach the stricken, with at least 19 bridges destroyed, 25 miles of primary highway washed away and 12 per cent of the nation’s entire power generation capacity knocked offline. 

Survivor Janak Bahadur in Devighat district said the flood ‘came in suddenly and exploded like a bomb’.

Houses lie partially submerged in muddy water along a riverside after flash floods at Trishuli Bazar in Nepal’s Nuwakot district on August 26, 2026

Scores of men in orange hi-vis jackets and hard hats fled in terror as they watched the mass of water rush at them

In the capital Kathmandu, relatives clung to hope as they gathered at an army base where survivors were being brought in by helicopters.

And miraculously 31 tourists were rescued from the district of Rasuwa including two US nationals, 11 Indians, four South Koreans, two Italians, two Russians, one Bulgarian and one Swiss national, according to the Nepal Tourism Board.

But elsewhere, men grimly pasted photographs of the deceased on a gate for identification outside a mortuary.

On the Tibet side of the border, a woman named Fang told Chinese media she had been driving to the Gyirong frontier crossing when the wave came – and slammed her car into reverse for two miles. 

She said: ‘All the trees and utility poles ahead of us were knocked down. A huge surge of water came rushing toward us and swept across the road. 

‘We didn’t dare turn around, so we could only reverse. We reversed for about three kilometers.’

Contrary to initial speculation an earthquake caused a million-ton glacier to fragment and fall, scientists yesterday came to the extraordinary conclusion that it was the other way round – they said the 5.2-scale earthquake recorded was actually the result of such a vast amount of ice and rock collapsing into the valley.

Officials said 33 Britons including a 14-year-old schoolboy remained missing last night.

Sarada Simkhada, a senior nurse at Darent Valley Hospital in Dartford, Kent, was among them. She had been on a pilgrimage to Mount Kailash in Tibet. 

Her childhood friend Rajendra Pudasaini described her as ‘very humble and down to earth’ and said she had trained as a nurse in Kathmandu before moving to the UK 20 years ago. 

He said she was known for being hard working, kind and compassionate.

Roshan Panday, owner of Fishtail Tours and Travels Group, had a tour group of 27 including Briton Leena Bector, 53, from Slough, and he said ‘no one is answering their phones’.

He said they had sent a video just nine minutes before the disaster struck, adding: ‘Absolutely everything’s under the mud. We tried calling the drivers. We tried calling the guides. We tried calling them all, but no one was answering.’

Ms Bector’s husband, Bhupesh Bector, told The Times he was frantically checking his iPhone to check her location but it had not changed for more than seven hours. 

He flew out last night, saying: ‘I know that she’s in Nepal for sure, so even if they find her today or tomorrow, I need to be there.’

Tour operator Kailash Journeys confirmed it had not been able to account for seven UK nationals – five women and two men aged between 18 and 55 – travelling with the company.

Another missing Briton is Nabhi Das, from Streatham in south London, family members confirmed. The University of Kent graduate, originally from Kenya and thought to work in finance, has not been heard from.

Children’s aid agency Unicef declared an emergency for 17,000 children affected by the floods. 

Alice Akunga, the UN agency’s Nepal representative, warned: ‘Children who have survived the floods now face heightened risks of disease, malnutrition, violence and exploitation.’