DISASTER RESPONSE: Isipingo pilgrim, 33, reported among six South Africans missing in Nepal

South African charity group Gift of the Givers has put an 11-person urban search and water rescue team on standby to travel to Nepal to try to rescue or recover at least six South Africans reported missing in the massive flash flood that hit the country’s border region with Tibet, China, on Wednesday, 26 August 2026.

The South African government is trying to verify the information about the plight of its citizens, said Chrispin Phiri, the spokesperson for the Department of International Relations and Cooperation.

The task is complicated by the absence of a South African embassy in Nepal. However SA’s High Commission in India, which is responsible for managing relations with Nepal, is seeking information.

The identities of the missing South Africans have not yet been confirmed.

Birthday pilgrimage

Media reports have identified one woman as 33-year-old Terricia Govender, from Isipingo Beach, who was travelling with the Isha Foundation on a Kailash Mansarovar Yatra tour. Her mother, Linda Govender, told Caxton that her daughter had travelled alone and joined the foundation to begin her pilgrimage to Mount Kailash on 12 August.

“She was so excited because she got to spend her birthday, which was on 20 August, there,” said Linda, according to Caxton.

Govender met Sadhguru, the spiritual guru and founder of the Isha Foundation, on her birthday. Linda last spoke to her daughter on 25 August, before receiving news of the floods on Sunday.

Sadhguru has also released a statement acknowledging that one South African national is among those missing.

Gift of the Givers separately told Newzroom Afrika that a South African couple had been reported missing. Director Dr Imtiaz Sooliman said he had received a call from the couple’s daughter, who told him her parents had been caught up in the floods in Nepal. She confirmed that two other South Africans had been travelling on the bus with them.

“The daughter is known to us. We spoke to the tour operator that hosted the couple. He confirmed that a second South African couple and several international tourists are missing and that thousands of homes, shopping malls and businesses have been washed away.”

The daughter made contact with the tour guide and operator, and Sooliman also spoke to the guide. About an hour after the call, she received information that her parents had been in a building that was “totally decimated by the floods”. She has since accepted that her parents have most likely died and said she does not know the whereabouts or identities of the other two South Africans.

Sooliman said he had also received information that another two South Africans were not in the area where the tragedy struck, and were still alive in another location nearby.

Team on standby

The Nepal Tourism Board on Thursday listed six South Africans among the 127 Nepali and 517 foreign nationals missing in the flood. It is expected that the numbers will rise as the devastation visible even from social media videos of the massive wall of water that hit towns and villages was clearly immense

Sooliman said Gift of the Givers’ 11 urban search and water rescue team members were ready for deployment, as well as four SAPS dog handlers and four dogs. But he added that Nepalese Disaster Management had advised them to remain on standby and not travel as Nepal’s government has not yet made a call for international assistance.

“But that may just be forthcoming once the true scale of the disaster is manifest in daylight hours,” he said late on Wednesday. “Furthermore, there is a huge danger that a dam may collapse as a secondary impact, putting teams at enormous risk.

“Helicopter surveillance is the only means of access as all roads have been totally destroyed, but landing is not currently possible as there is no solid ground given the height of the water level. We are aware of other South Africans in the region, but they are safe.”

Sooliman said he was in touch with the Nepalese Embassy in SA which was prepared to process visas with immediate effect, “but we [are] holding on until a call for international assistance is made”.

His organisation was also busy with airline companies in preparation for logistical arrangements. The Department of International Relations and Cooperation would be contacted for diplomatic support if the teams were deployed.

The deployment of the SAPS dog handlers and their dogs had been authorised by Deputy National Police Commissioner, Lieutenant-General Tebello Mosikili, Sooliman said.

He added that Ahmed Bham, Gift of the Givers head of search and rescue, was in communication with Nepalese Disaster Management as Gift of the Givers had a relationship with them, having responded to the Nepal Earthquake in 2015.

Sooliman said the disaster site was 125km north of the capital Kathmandu.

The flash flood of water, mud, rock and debris appeared to have been caused by a glacier collapsing, though the impact was so large it was first thought to have been an earthquake.

The US Geological Survey said on its website: “This event was initially reported as a magnitude 4.4 earthquake. Additional analysis of long period seismic waves indicate that the seismic energy was instead generated by a glacial collapse and debris flow. The location of this event was estimated from satellite images.”

The office said the glacier had collapsed at 02:52:10 Coordinated Universal Time (Greenwich Mean Time) or 08:37:10 Nepal time, on 26 August, 55km northwest of Kodāri̇̄. DM