Cara Severino, the Australian who had been missing for days after the flood on the border betweenNepal and China, is safe. This was confirmed by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Penny Wong, after the young woman managed to speak with her parents yesterday and was finally located.
“I am very glad to know she is safe. She has also spoken with her family, which I know will be a great relief for them,” Wong said this Saturday, describing the discovery as “an uncommon positive piece of news amid a disaster that has caused immense losses and uncertainty.”
An Australian consular team traveled by off-road vehicle from Kathmandu to an accessible point on the route that Severino was walking from Gosainkunda, a village of about 8,000 inhabitants where she was finally able to contact her family after being listed as one of the missing persons from Australia. Severino has been moved to a safe location.
Her name had been on the list for two days, which has just increased to more than 40 Australians missing following the glacier collapse that triggered the catastrophe. Without coverage or any way to contact anyone, she managed to walk to Gosainkunda thanks to a group of Nepalese hikers who crossed her path. Severino did not want to miss the opportunity to publicly thank them.
“I am very grateful to the group we formed that first day when we entered the national park on the tractor: Sudha, Lucas, Samir, and Saugat. Thanks to these incredible people, I managed to get out safely,” she said.
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The news coincides with a significant shift in Nepal’s disaster management, which until now had refused to accept foreign aid for search efforts. The country will open the door to international teams to rescue about 100 people still trapped in the tunnel of the hydroelectric plant under construction that was flooded by the flood. They have also requested help to conduct DNA tests and forensic examinations, according to The Kathmandu Post.
Among the countries whose cooperation has been accepted are Australia, India, China, and South Korea, which had a rapid response contingent prepared in Kathmandu. A senior government official explained that international pressure was decisive.
“We received enormous pressure from the international community to at least allow the entry of search and rescue teams and some experts, as citizens from those countries have also disappeared due to the floods.” The change of course contrasts with what the Nepalese Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Lok Bahadur Chhetri, said just a day earlier, stating “for now we do not need that help.”
The fourth day of search and rescue operations since the flood on Wednesday was again hampered by rain, and some operations were temporarily halted on Saturday. The count includes more than 600 fatalities and nearly 3,000 people still missing between Tibet and Nepal.
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