Neeral Patel sent well-wishes to her cousin on his birthday last Wednesday, but she never heard back.
Her cousin Ishan Patel was in Nepal at the time, not far from the border with China, where a devastating flash flood ripped through the valley that same day.
She's calling for a wider international response to help in rescue efforts as the days tick by with no word on her cousin or the three family members he was travelling with.
"We want to give a lot of hope. But with each passing day, it's just getting chipped away, and time is of the essence," said Patel, who lives in Toronto.
Ishan Patel was travelling with his wife, Akanksha Patel, both dual Canadian-U. S. citizens, along with his mother, Shilpa Patel, and father-in-law, Umesh Patel, who are Canadian, she said.
The four were on a long-planned pilgrimage to Mount Kaliash ahead of Ishan Patel starting a new job as an orthopedic surgeon, after finishing his fellowship in July, said Neeral Patel.
"It was kind of the big holy beginnings to his new career."
The flooding on Aug. 26 killed at least 1,204 people and left more than 4,200 missing after a glacier collapsed in the Himalayan border region between Nepal and China.
Nepal's Foreign Ministry said 324 foreign nationals have been rescued, while about 590 from 39 countries remain unaccounted for.
Ottawa had said 30 Canadians and permanent residents were among the missing. Later Wednesday, it reported that one Canadian citizen was safe, and the tally was changed to 29.
"The individual was unreachable due to communication outages and established contact yesterday," Anita Anand, Canada's foreign affairs minister, said in a statement.
In Kathmandu, police have buried dozens of unidentified bodies in trenches because there are too many to keep or identify individually.
The scale of the disaster is hampering rescue efforts, as landslides and destroyed roads have cut off remote areas.
Rescuers were also racing to reach hundreds of hydropower workers trapped in tunnels.
With so many still unaccounted for, Neeral Patel said family members have been left scouring the internet, looking on Nepal police sites and missing identity sites to see if the names of any relatives come up.
She said two family members have also travelled to Kathmandu to look in hospitals and anywhere else they can find answers, but the roads up to the flood-hit area are closed.
Making the wait even harder is that they know where to search, she said, because her cousin's phone pinged from a spot a short distance from Hotel Kailash, where they had breakfast last Wednesday.
"This is why we're urging everyone to please, in the right area, search as much as you can, because we're coming up to a week's time and still no news," she said.
Anand said search teams in China and Nepal are using a range of specialized tools and technologies including drones, helicopters, search dogs and other advanced equipment as the ground search continues.
She added that Canada would send more than 18,000 emergency items from Canadian Red Cross stockpiles, including blankets and buckets, to the area in addition to the $5 million Ottawa has already pledged in humanitarian aid.
"We have a 10-person team on the ground in Nepal. I am in continuous touch with my colleague, Foreign Minister Shisir Khanal, and we will leave no stone unturned to help Canadians in need."
Patel said Global Affairs told her family about the team being sent but they're still holding out hope for a bigger response.
"There should be a global effort, everyone work together to try to bring our family members home."
Picture Courtesy: AP Photo/Rajesh Kumar Singh
