Climate
A melting glacier contributed to the deadly Nepal floods. We can expect more like this
Shreya Ahuja, a 30-year-old physician who lives in North Carolina, had spoken to her parents just hours before floods struck Nepal. They had finished a pilgrimage trek to Mount Kailash and were heading toward the border. The next morning, Ahuja began seeing messages from relatives about flash flooding.
Read more Mike D thought making music was behind him. Then came ‘Thank You’
“I tried texting them. I tried calling them. And initially, I wasn’t too concerned,” Ahuja told “I feel like everyone thinks, what are the chances that they were in that exact spot?”
World
Hundreds killed, over 1,000 missing after flash floods in Nepal and Tibet
As of Friday, police in Nepal said more than 500 people had been killed on the Nepal side of the border, while more than 1,500 people in total were still missing after nearly 30-foot-high waves raced down a river between Tibet and Nepal.
Ahuja’s parents, Deepak and Madhu Ahuja, were born in India and came to the U.S. in the 1990s. They are U.S. citizens and small business owners in Dallas. They were making the pilgrimage for her father’s 60th birthday. Ahuja said their last known location was the Gyirong border crossing between China and Nepal. She said CCTV footage shows the flooding destroying the building where their group was supposed to be.
Read more Fed’s Kevin Warsh warns inflation is too high, sparking bets rate hikes are coming
Ahuja is now in Washington, D.C., with family, including her grandparents.
“It’s essentially been one long day. Haven’t really slept,”she told NPR’s Steve Inskeep. “We’re just really hoping that we can get to them in time.”
Technology
Can the Global South trust Starlink?
She called on people to contact their local legislators and asked for more collaboration among India, Nepal, China and the United States. She also called for Starlink to be authorized in Nepal, saying friends who work with SpaceX told her the company had tried to deploy dishes there but had not received approval.
“These are all tangible things that could really help us get into contact with people on the ground,” Ahuja said.
Read more New Jersey is a fossil hotspot, with answers about the day the dinosaurs died
Lilly Quiroz