This Indian pilgrim was about to enter Tibet for her dream tour - then her WhatsApp messages stopped

Early on Wednesday, Sudipto Bhattacharya received what would be the last messages from his wife.

She'd sent a picture of a departure stamp in her passport at 07:57 (02:27 GMT) - immigration at the Nepal border was done.

Six minutes later, at 08:03, she wrote: we are waiting to enter China. Then the messages stopped.

Subhrasree Chakraborty and the group she was travelling with had been waiting to cross into Tibet for the next stage of their pilgrimage to Mount Kailash, the sacred Himalayan home of Hindu god Shiva that Subhrasree had dreamed of visiting for years.

The 43-year-old is now among at least 290 Indians reported missing after deadly flash floods struck along Nepal's border with Tibet. Many of those unaccounted for were on the pilgrimage, which resumed last year after being disrupted by the pandemic and then by tensions between India and China. Thousands of Indians have been making their way to Mount Kailash for years.

Subhrasree was travelling without her family, as part of a group of about 30 people. A medical technologist working in critical care at a city hospital, she was used to emergencies. She knew CPR and intensive-care procedures and, according to her husband, was physically fit.

But none of that has brought her husband Sudipto Bhattacharya any closer to knowing what happened after that final message.

"After 08:03am, what happened? We don't know anything," he says.