LEXINGTON, MA — A Lexington woman is among the people missing after catastrophic flash flooding and landslides swept through Nepal, killing nearly 600 people and leaving about 2,500 others unaccounted for.
Joyti Rai had been traveling on a pilgrimage with a group of about 35 people when the disaster struck. No one from that group has been able to make contact since the flooding hit, according to a close friend of the family.
Manmeet Sangh Meet said Rai spoke with her husband just moments before the flood and that her phone has not moved from the location where the hotel once stood.
What friends and family say happened
Sangh Meet, who has known Rai for 15 years, said the group was staying at Hotel Kailash when the water and mud came through. He said the flood was so violent that the entire hotel was washed into the river within minutes.
He described the scene as having no sign of human life or civilization left behind. Rai’s relatives in India have also joined the search, but no one from the group has been reached since the disaster.
Sangh Meet said he had worked with Rai for more than 15 years, including time in India and later in Hudson at Intel. He said the family has been in constant contact as the situation has unfolded.
A Lexington family waits while the search continues in Nepal
Back in Massachusetts, Sangh Meet said he is caring for Rai’s two children in Lexington while her husband, Sanjeev Rai, looks for his wife in Kathmandu. The couple has been married 25 years and has a 22-year-old daughter and a 15-year-old son.
He said the husband has been overwhelmed by the scale of the disaster and by the lack of answers. The family has been clinging to hope, even as the chances of finding Rai alive appear to be fading.
“I am leaving .01% to a miracle,” Sangh Meet said, adding that the uncertainty has been unbearable.
The toll from Nepal’s flooding and landslides
The flooding and landslides have become one of the deadliest natural disasters in Nepal in recent memory, with the death toll near 600 and thousands still missing. The full extent of the damage remains unclear in areas hit hardest by the water and mud.
Rai had recently celebrated her 50th birthday before traveling to Nepal for the spiritual trip, friends said. The family’s focus now is on the search effort and on waiting for any sign that she or anyone else from the group may be found.
For those in Lexington following the ordeal, the story has become a painful wait across continents, with little information and no confirmed update on Rai’s whereabouts.
When the weather turns dangerous, SVH Snow is watching.
