Five days after catastrophic flash floods tore through the Nepal-Tibet border, the family of Filipino doctor Juan Carlos Manalo is still waiting for official word on his fate, as the confirmed death toll from the disaster climbs past 780 and nearly 3,000 people remain unaccounted for.
Manalo, 30, of Tarlac City, was traveling with a Kailash Mansarovar Yatra pilgrimage group organized by the Isha Foundation, an India-based spiritual organization led by Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev, when the Aug. 26 floods struck.
A graduate of the Ateneo School of Medicine and Public Health who had worked at Tarlac Provincial Hospital’s dialysis center, he had spent the past several years involved with the Isha Sadhguru group and traveled to India in May for a retreat before joining this year’s pilgrimage in early August.
His sister, Chiara Manalo, said the family last heard from him on August 25 at 1:21 p.m. Philippine time with a routine “good morning” message to the family group chat, just a day before the disaster.
His group’s last known location was the immigration office in Gyirong, on the Tibetan side of the border; Sadhguru said in a social media post that dozens of pilgrims from the group were at that office when the flood hit. Footage that later circulated online showed the immigration building destroyed.
As of the latest update from Philippine officials, no family member has yet formally connected with the embassy or the Department of Foreign Affairs to receive confirmation of Manalo’s status, and the family says it remains hopeful he survived.
Chiara has said friends have also reached out to the Red Cross and the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration to help expedite the search, and that the Philippine Embassy in New Delhi has asked for details about her brother but has not yet provided updates.
The family is asking anyone with information to contact them: Jose Rodrigo Manalo (+63 917 302 3077), Dinah Marie Manalo (+63 917 514 3465), or Chiara Manalo (+63 917 791 7849).
Toll continues to rise
Nepal’s disaster management agency reported 781 deaths and nearly 3,000 people still missing as of Sunday evening, up sharply from the roughly 300 dead reported in the disaster’s immediate aftermath.
Authorities have said more than 7,500 people have been rescued, including over 200 foreign nationals. On the Chinese side of the border, in Tibet’s Gyirong County, authorities have confirmed at least 16 deaths with several hundred more missing, though no additional survivors had been found there as of this weekend.
Search efforts along the border were briefly complicated after a barrier lake formed from debris left by the original landslide began overflowing; Chinese officials said Sunday the situation had stabilized and a full breach was considered unlikely.
The disaster, triggered by a glacier collapse that sent a wall of water, ice and debris down the Himalayas, remains one of the deadliest flooding events in the region’s recent history, with Nepali and Chinese rescue teams still working to reach areas cut off by damaged roads and unstable terrain.
