Every day since a wall of mud and rocks ravaged a Nepal-China border crossing, Arushi Gupta's parents call and text her several times. Her last picture came from near there. The calls never go through, the messages remain undelivered.
"15 min walk to border," the 33-year-old wrote to her father in New Delhi in a WhatsApp message early morning on August 26, as she prepared to cross from Nepal into Tibet on a pilgrimage to the Hindu holy site of Mount Kailash.
Arushi's updates used to be constant: the quick cup of milky tea at a Nepal hotel, the medicine popped for the journey ahead, the last-minute hiccup of a fellow traveller's forgotten passport, and finally, a photograph of the formidable facade of the immigration centre at Gyirong Port, the land border crossing.
"We are convinced that she has gone to the Tibet side of the border and is safe in some elevated place," said 63-year-old Ajay Gupta, her father. "Her husband is convinced, I am convinced, my wife is convinced."
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According to Nepali authorities, at least 1,386 have died and 5,130 are missing on their side since a glacial collapse caused mayhem down the valleys. On the other side, at least 43 people have died but more than 519 are missing, including many foreigners, prolonging an agonizing wait for their families.
Yet, at the same time, the lack of concrete information has also offered them a sliver of optimism, even if distant, that their loved ones may still be out there somewhere.
Thousands of miles away in Norway, Ukrainian film student Vladyslava Horlova holds on to a similar hope. The 22-year-old goes to sleep every night with her phone ringer turned up to maximum volume, in the hope that there will be some news of her mother.
Elena Horlova, 42, part of a group of dozens of Ukrainians on a spiritual retreat, also went missing along the mountainous border port.
Vladyslava's last text message to her mother on August 27 - a brief WhatsApp message asking, "Did you land?" - remains unread.
"They haven't been confirmed dead," Vladyslava told Reuters over a video call. "So I think that's a little hope to hold on to."
A SEARCH ACROSS COUNTRIES
Arushi, a corporate professional and a fitness hobbyist, planned a visit to Mount Kailash, believed by Hindus to be the eternal home of Lord Shiva, for months. She lived with her husband Shubham in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad, but the flight to Kathmandu was from Delhi, her parents' home.
On August 23, her parents dropped her at the airport and the family took a quick photograph before she boarded her flight: a smiling Arushi flanked by Ajay and his wife, Anshu.
In her last conversation with her father from the border check post, she narrated how a co-traveller in the group had misplaced his passport: "Unexpected things can occur, and only patience is required," she wrote.
Her parents have summoned the deepest reserves of their own patience and optimism, trying to piece together what happened to her.
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Ajay said that his family is doing everything that came to mind in an interview from his brother-in-law's home in Delhi, where the family has been staying since Arushi went missing.
He breaks down several times, particularly when he speaks about trying to reach the authorities and get more information.
Over the first two days after the disaster, Arushi's family frantically called hotlines in all three countries — India, from where most of the pilgrims had gone, Nepal, and China - and reached out to embassies and officials. A call to her travel insurance company connected them with families of the other pilgrims in her group.
The families quickly formed a WhatsApp group, and for days it buzzed with updates and queries from its 200-odd members. Every evening at 6 p.m., the families would get on a call to share information and coordinate the search efforts.
Three days after the floods, Ajay decided to travel to Kathmandu himself, accompanied by three relatives. For the next three days, they went from hospital to hospital, scanning posters of the dead and checking lists of names. They met embassy officials and police officers, trying to find out what was happening at the border crossing. Ajay also gave a DNA sample.
But nothing concrete emerged.
They went to the hotel where Arushi had stayed, searching for any clue. Her two suitcases were still there. The group had taken only duffels for the trek, leaving the larger bags behind. Ajay brought them back to India. Inside were clothes, a prayer bead and a few mementos she had bought in Nepal.
"I stayed in the hotel lobby. I sat for one hour. So the feeling was that my daughter was sitting here two days back," he said, breaking down.
Ajay said he was banking on China's advanced tech abilities to help look for his daughter.
China's foreign ministry has said its release of information about the floods was "transparent and timely" and that it is ready to work with other countries and agencies.
'MIRACLES DO HAPPEN'
A woman looks at photographs of missing persons in the aftermath of flash floods, at the Tribhuvan University Teaching hospital in Kathmandu on August 30, 2026. Manan Vatsyayana, AFP
In Norway, Vladyslava has spent the same weeks on a parallel, lonely search on her computer, reaching out to people across four countries.
She said she had sent about 30 emails and made dozens of calls to foreign ministries, embassies and police departments in China, Nepal, Norway and Ukraine.
She gave a DNA swab to Norwegian police and sent appeals translated into Chinese, asking authorities to check surveillance footage, cross-check border timestamps and review hospital records for unidentified patients.
Yet every inquiry has hit a dead end.
When she opens Apple's Find My app, the screen presents a painful puzzle: Elena's iPhone last pinged on the Chinese side of the border in Tibet, while her Apple Watch and AirPods registered near the Friendship Bridge on the Nepalese side. Neither marker has moved since late August.
Ajay's family has also reached out to Apple, hoping the company might be able to provide some information about the devices.
Vladyslava, meanwhile, says that even updates that offer no breakthrough were better than the daily uncertainty.
"It's just like frustrating that I'm not getting any updates," she said. "I just want to know, okay, today, we searched that area, we didn't find anything."
As the days have passed, even the Indian WhatsApp group that once buzzed constantly with updates has gone quiet.
But Ajay remains steadfast.
On Tuesday, he is going to Nepal again, this time with his wife and son-in-law.
"Miracles do happen. I have faith in God," Ajay said.
(Camera: Sunil Kataria, Nicoco Chan, Joseph Campbell, Francis Mascarenhas, Xihao Jiang, Writing: Tora Agarwala, Ju-min Park; Editing and Production: Zahra Matarani)