The last messages Swati Bagrecha sent home were meant to reassure her family in Madhya Pradesh.

The 50-year-old told them that the immigration process was underway and that the group was about to reach Nepal. The journey back had been tiring, the internet connection was poor, and she was going to sleep, she said. They were expected to reach Nepal late that night. She had an early flight to catch the next morning. She would text then.

“She was going to sleep and wouldn’t be able to talk because of connectivity issues along the route, and they were scheduled to reach Nepal late at night. She messaged that she would only be able to text the next day, as she had an early flight out. That was the last message,” Swati’s sister Dr Smita Bagrecha said.

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Swati is one of 320 still unaccounted for after flash floods swept Tibet and Nepal. The death toll from the flash floods in Nepal and Tibet has climbed to 538, while 977 remain missing. Around 3,742 people have been rescued so far. During a media briefing, the Ministry of External Affairs confirmed that 400 Indians on the Chinese side are safe. In addition to the 320 Indians still missing, more than 100 people of Indian origin, who may hold other nationalities, also remain unaccounted for.

Swati is the younger daughter of Dr K.C. Bagrecha, a retired Chief Medical and Health Officer of Vidisha, and grew up in the Madhya Pradesh town before moving abroad. She has been living in Toronto, Canada, with her husband and had returned to India this month before setting out for the Kailash Mansarovar pilgrimage. An engineer by profession, she had come to India with the intention of undertaking the pilgrimage and left her daughter with relatives in Vidisha while she travelled with the 77-member group.

For most of the trip, Swati kept in touch with her family from different points along the route, sending messages when she could. Direct calls were difficult because of the terrain and connectivity, so WhatsApp messages became the thread connecting her to home.

Swati had reached Kathmandu on August 14 and spent two days there. They travelled through several stops before reaching Mansarovar, where they spent two days. On the return journey, the group stopped at several locations. She was to catch a flight on August 26, after her trek ended.

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“Earlier that morning, she dropped a message that the immigration process was underway and they were about to reach Nepal, and there has been no contact since then,” her father, Dr K.C. Bagrecha, said.

Then came the news that turned an ordinary delay in communication into a family’s worst fear.

According to Bagrecha, the pilgrims were inside an immigration hall when the disaster struck. “Everyone was inside the immigration hall when the accident struck, and the building was swept away by the strong current,” he said.

The family has contacted the Indian, Nepali and Canadian embassies and sought help through government and administrative channels. On Friday, Vidisha BJP MLA Mukesh Tandon visited the family and assured them that efforts were being made through the relevant agencies to trace Swati.

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“We are trying to contact the Nepal embassy for any word of her…we are trying our best to help the family out and track their daughter,” Vidisha MLA Tandon said.

Throughout the journey, Swati’s main means of contacting her family was through text messages. One of those was a perfectly ordinary message, yet it is one the family is now holding on to. That text, sent to her father from Bittu – Swati’s nickname at home – was sent at 7:43 am.

“Just finished the trek,” it said.