A couple from Basirhat in West Bengal’s North 24 Parganas district, who had been in the vicinity of the flash flood-affected area in Nepal, came back home on Sunday and recounted days of anxiety before their safe return.
Another retired couple from Basirhat – Swapan Mondal and Mou Mondal – who were also on the trip but with a different travel agency, remain untraced. Retired schoolteachers Anukul Poddar and his wife Reba Roy Poddar, who were in a group of 17 pilgrims on the Mansarovar Yatra with a travel agency, said their tour manager received the news of the disaster and the driver reversed the vehicle in the nick of time. Anukul said they had planned to cross into Tibet on August 27, but instead reached Birgunj, a Nepal town bordering Bihar on Friday on the way home.
they said they did not have the courage to travel from Raxaul to Patna, and chose to return with the rest of the group by train While the administration of Basirhat sub-division had advised them to fly to Kolkata from Patna. They reached Howrah station on Sunday aboard the Mithila Express and were received by a team of the Basirhat police station, which escorted them home under state government arrangements.
The driver moved the vehicle to higher ground before their manager learnt over the phone that a bridge on the route to the immigration office had been washed away in the flash flood, cutting off further travel.
