Families hold on to hope for Latvians missing in Nepal

Relatives are still hoping for the return of Latvian citizens who went missing in Nepal after a landslide triggered floods, LSM’s LTV programme Aizliegtais paņēmiens reports. One of them is Vineta Šķērīte, whose dance group says: “We believe she will still return and are waiting for the day we can dance together.”

The programme reports that two groups from Latvia were affected. Among those missing are opera violinist Svetlana Okuņa, doctor Eleonora Circene, Jūlija Ķena, Anželika Tuče, Anna Grigorjeva, finance professional Olga Labada, and dancer and folk costume artist Šķērīte. The list also includes European Central Bank employee Jūlija Jakovica; Dmitrijs Grišins and Sandra Straume; spouses Agnese and Raimonds Fūrmaņi; Sergejs Zambers and Svetlana Kriņica; Jeļena Timofejeva, Līga Čarna and Irina Safronova; entrepreneur Igors and consultant Sofija; Inga Veisa and Irita Kiršblūma; hairdresser Anna Paholova; spouses Vita and Sergejs Jefimovi; Evita Sarma, Lilita Kalniņa, Ārija Lāce and Egija Kerliņa; and trip organisers Raimonds Kļaviņš and Viktorija Darakova.

At 5:52 a.m. Latvian time on August 26, seismic instruments recorded sudden tremors in the Langtang Lirung massif in the Himalayas, at an altitude of about five kilometres. A mass of ice and rock then collapsed, drawing river water into the slide and causing floods that swept through villages and towns along the Bhote Koshi valley, as well as damaging roads and homes and carrying away trees, animals and people.

The valley is also a route used by pilgrims travelling towards China and then Tibet, from where they continue to Mount Kailash. More than 20,000 Nepali state workers and several non-governmental organisations took part in the search. The latest figures cited by the programme put the disaster’s death toll at 1,453.