"That Phone Call Was the Last One," She Tearfully Recalls... Joint Funeral Held Without Bodies

Portraits of 19 men were posted all at once at the entrance of the main dharma hall of a Buddhist temple in Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal.

A small candle was burning on the altar placed beneath the photographs.

Bottled water and orange juice were neatly arranged alongside fruits right underneath it.

Mourners placed a "Khada," a long white ceremonial scarf used in Buddhist rituals, on the altar and then sequentially dropped envelopes containing money into the donation box.

Inside the main dharma hall, where the 19 portraits were placed in the center, the sound of monks chanting Buddhist scriptures filled the air.

Bereaved family members stood side by side, clasping their hands together in prayer.

The men with serene faces in the portraits were Sherpas who went missing during the massive flood that struck areas of Bagmati Province in the central-northern region on August 26.


Sherpas are commonly known as climbing guides who act as pathfinders for professional mountaineers attempting to scale high Himalayan peaks.

Originally, the name refers to an ethnic minority that has lived in the high-altitude regions of the Himalayas for a long time.

These Sherpas often use their ethnic name "Sherpa" as a surname at the end of their names.

Pema Nurpu Sherpa, 38, said, "Sherpas are there for each other through good times and hard times," adding, "We consider almost everyone within one degree of separation to be relatives, so when a tragedy like this happens, we grieve and comfort each other together."

The bodies of the 19 individuals in the portraits have still not been found, even a week after the massive flood occurred on August 26.

However, following the traditions of Nepali Buddhism, the bereaved families decided to finally let their beloved family members go and held a "joint funeral without bodies" on the 2nd local time.


Among the missing was a community leader who guided Sherpas in Tatopani, located in the Sindhupalchok district of Bagmati Province.

His third younger brother, Vikas Lama Sherpa, 44, said, "My oldest brother was a monk, but he also worked as a truck driver traveling back and forth across the Tibet border," adding, "Our phone call three days before the accident was our last."

He choked back tears, saying, "My second older brother, who lives in the United States, rushed back to Korea after hearing the news of our oldest brother going missing, and we rented a helicopter together to inspect the accident site," and added, "Seeing the landscape completely washed away, I felt that my oldest brother couldn't possibly be alive, so we ultimately decided to hold the funeral to let him go in peace."


Nima Pasang Sherpa, 34, who attended his brother-in-law's funeral, also said, "We don't know whether they are alive or dead," adding, "We couldn't find the bodies, but we came to hold the funeral (promptly) in accordance with Buddhist culture (similar to that of the Tibet Autonomous Region of China)."

Hearing the news that a funeral would be held, Sherpas who gathered at this Buddhist temple from in and around Kathmandu exceeded 1,000 people in about an hour.

They hoped that the souls of the missing would emerge from the rivers and mud to rest in peace.

Lakpa Tillie Sherpa, president of the Sherpa Volunteer Center which operates this Buddhist temple, said, "Just among the people I know, more than 50 Sherpas have died or gone missing in this massive flood," adding, "My heart is breaking."


The sound of Buddhist chanting also leaked from a three-story house in the Makalibari residential area of Kathmandu, located a 20-minute drive from the Buddhist temple.

About 100 Sherpa family members and neighborhood residents sat packed tightly together to pray for the repose of the family head of this house, whose body has not even been found.

Tshiring Sherpa, 23, whom we met in front of the house, recalled, "I have been working as a chef in Toronto, Canada, for three and a half years, and I received an international call from my father about an hour before the massive flood hit," adding, "That phone call, where we asked after each other's well-being, was our last conversation."

With reddened eyes, he expressed his anguish, saying, "My father, who worked as a guide at the Tibet border, said he was going to Kathmandu two days later," and added, "If things had finished just two days earlier, I wouldn't have lost my father."

His uncle also emphasized, "I was working in Japan and came to Nepal after hearing the news about my older brother," and stated, "An incident like this must never happen to anyone again."

Due to the massive floods that battered the Himalayan mountainous regions along the Nepal-China border on August 26, a total of 1,130 people died and 4,462 remained missing across Nepal and Chinese Tibet bordering Nepal as of the previous day.


(Photo: Yonhap News)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.