A 67-year-old Northern Virginia man is among as many as 90 Americans unaccounted for after flash floods destroyed a Himalayan border checkpoint, and his family says they have heard almost nothing from the governments involved.
Anil Goel, a retired World Bank employee and seasoned trekker, had his visa approved at the Rasuwagadhi immigration checkpoint on Nepal's border with Tibet at 8:35 a.m. local time on August 26, 2026. Roughly 35 minutes later, the collapse of a distant rock ledge and the massive glacier it supported sent a wall of floodwater and mud through the valley, CBS News reported. Every building at the checkpoint was swept away or buried.
Goel had sent a photo to his family from the border crossing just minutes before the flood hit. His son Anurag Goel, an engineer in Boston, and his daughter Manvi Goel, who lives in California, have not heard from their father since.
Anurag Goel told CBS News the family received one image showing his father with his tour group at the immigration office shortly before the disaster.
"We have a photo of our father with his group from the border crossing."
The group included approximately 10 other Americans and two Nepali nationals, all traveling with Classic Vacations, a Kathmandu-based adventure trekking company. Goel was headed to Mount Kailash, a peak sacred to Hindus and Buddhists in Tibet. His son described the trip as deeply personal.
"For him, it was both, a hiking expedition and a religious pilgrimage to Mount Kailash."
Manvi Goel said the family still does not know whether her father made it across the border into Tibet before the floodwaters arrived.
"We are not sure if they crossed into Tibet. It's possible they did, but my hunch is he was still on the Nepal side when the calamity struck."
That uncertainty, which side of the border Goel was on when the disaster hit, matters enormously. It determines which government is responsible for the search, which agencies have jurisdiction, and which rescue teams would even know to look for him.
Vantor satellite imagery captured the scale of what happened. An image from April 2024 shows the Gyirong Port border post facility, the Chinese name for the same crossing, standing intact. A second image, taken August 27, one day after the flood, shows the valley scoured clean. The buildings are gone.
Anil Goel was no novice in the Himalayas. He had visited Nepal 10 times for hiking expeditions. His daughter said the region had become his favorite place in the world. He climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa's highest peak, and trekked to Mount Everest base camp with his wife Amita in 2015. In January 2019, the whole family, Anurag, Manvi, Anil, and Amita, traveled together to Chile's Patagonia region. He documented his treks on YouTube.
This was his second trek of 2026. Manvi Goel said her father wanted to bring close friends from Virginia along to explore the region he loved.
"Over the years he did many treks. This was his second trek this year. He wanted to take his dear friends from Virginia to understand and explore the region."
Anurag said his father had been "very excited, in his happy place" during their last conversation before the trip.
The Goel family is far from alone in its anguish. The U.S. State Department said as many as 90 Americans could have been impacted by the floods. As many as 540 foreign nationals from 31 countries remained among the missing as of Friday, August 28. The broader count of missing persons stood at roughly 1,400 to 1,500, the figures cited in different portions of reporting were not reconciled, with local Nepali media putting the number as high as 12,000, though authorities had not confirmed that figure.
AP News reported that three Americans had been rescued and that 22 Americans affiliated with the Isha Foundation spiritual organization were at an immigration center in Gyirong, Tibet, when the floods struck at 9:14 a.m. Nepalese time. No American deaths had been confirmed by the State Department. President Trump confirmed that U.S. officials had spoken with Nepalese leaders and offered assistance, estimating 50 to 60 Americans were in the affected area.
But Nepal's Foreign Ministry said Friday that it did not need foreign assistance with search and rescue operations, despite offers of help from several countries. Rescue efforts were described as still ramping up two full days after the flood.
That refusal deserves scrutiny. Hundreds of foreign nationals are missing. Families across the United States are waiting by their phones. And the Nepali government's position is that it can handle this alone, while the death toll climbs and a swollen glacial lake upstream raises the prospect of a second inundation. China's state television network said the flood risks from the lake were "manageable." Neither government's reassurances have given families like the Goels any concrete information about their loved ones.
The Goels are not the only American family staring at a phone that will not ring. Jolene Gosha, a friend of missing Ohio man Venus Rajnikant Patel, captured the grim arithmetic of hope and realism that dozens of families are now living with.
"We're just hoping, hoping that by some chance he was able to climb his way out of it. I don't want to give myself false hope because I know the reality is that he's probably not with us."
Sunny Patel, the son of missing Long Island resident Jitendra Patel, described the worsening dread in blunt terms: "It gets worse by every hour, obviously."
Many of the missing Americans were pilgrims, Hindus and Buddhists traveling to Mount Kailash, one of the most sacred sites in their faith. They were not thrill-seekers or daredevils. They were retirees, professionals, and devout believers on a journey that thousands make every year.
Anurag Goel said the family is bracing for the worst but has not given up.
"We hope for good news but understand the severity of the situation."
He also made clear that sympathy alone is not enough. The family wants to know what rescue operations are actually underway, who is conducting them, and whether foreign governments and aid agencies are being allowed to help.
"We also want to understand the nature of the rescue work... and raise awareness so that more foreign governments and agencies are able to help."
That plea points to the central failure in the response so far. Two days after the flood, with nearly 1,500 people missing and a glacial lake threatening further destruction, Nepal told the world it did not need help. The families waiting in Boston, California, Ohio, and Long Island have no way to verify that claim, and no reason to trust it.
When a government refuses outside help while its own citizens and foreign nationals remain buried or missing, the word for that is not sovereignty. It is obstruction. And the people paying the price are families like the Goels, who sent a father off to the place he loved most and got back one photograph and silence.
