Amrita Goyal last spoke to her IT professional husband, Anil, when he was about to cross the Nepal-Tibet border and begin the next leg of the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra on August 26. He was happy and excited, and mentioned it quite a few times before the flash flood ravaged towns and swept villages in northern Nepal, killing at least 469.

Now she hopes that her husband will return on September 3, the day he had promised to come back home after completing his Mount Kailash trip.

For 67-year-old Anil Goel, trekking to Mount Kailash was a passion he wanted to share with others. The US-based IT professional, who retired from the World Bank in Washington DC in January this year, was on his third Kailash Mansarovar trip when a flash flood in Nepal‘s Rasuwa district cut off communication.

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Amita Goyal is currently at her daughter’s house in San Francisco, the USA. In Delhi, her brother, Vipin Gupta, is trying to get in touch with officials, but all efforts have so far ended in vain.

Anil Goyal’s current location remains unknown, and the group he left with for the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra has since been out of contact. One of them was last active around 7.45 am at a café near the Rasuwagadh immigration point, according to the information shared with the family.

The group comprises Anil Goel, Srinivas Sudhir Rangu, Sudhindra Yapalparvi, Laxminath Gopisetty, Venkataraman Balasubramanyam, Kirti Acharya, Venkat Bangalore, Keshav Rao and Vivek Srivastav, all US citizens, and Mahendra Gupta, a Canadian citizen.

Anil Goyal’s current location remains unknown, and the group he left with for the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra has since been out of contact

“He left home on August 20 for his trip. We are praying and desperately awaiting to hear from the group,” Vipin said.

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Amita said her husband was quite excited about the trip. “He was very happy; he was feeling so good. ‘Whatever I want to do in life, I am doing it. I am very happy. And our first week of the trip went very well; the weather is nice, everything is going well. Now we are crossing the border, and I am happy, and then we will be back soon,” she recalled him telling her.

Then all contact was lost as a devastating flash flood struck Nepal’s Rasuwa district on Wednesday morning. The flood swept through the Rasuwagadhi area along the Nepal-China border, damaging roads and critical infrastructure and disrupting communications on the route used by pilgrims travelling towards Kailash Mansarovar.

For Amita, the journey was familiar. She had accompanied her husband to Kailash in 2024, when their group of around 20 people had undertaken the trek.

That trip too was disrupted by difficult weather. “There was so much rain, so many landslides and the bridge vanished. We did not want to give up our programme, so we went through the Lhasa side,” she said.

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Her husband had accompanied her on that trip and was one of the main leaders and motivators of the group. “He is the main leader. He is the main guide. The main motivator, leading the group.”

Goel’s passion for trekking grew after his retirement, she said. She explained that high-altitude trekking was possible only during certain periods of the year because of the weather conditions.

In Virginia, where the couple had been based, Goel had formed a hiking group called “Happy Feet”, bringing together fellow hikers. After retiring, he also started a company with the same name in March this year to organise trips, she said.

The disappearance has left Goel’s fellow hikers in Virginia deeply worried. “I appear normal, but I am extremely distressed internally, trying to hold myself strong for my children, and I am telling them their father will call soon, and he will come back home on September 3 when his trip ends,” she said.