Nepal floods: Sydney woman races to find missing partner

For eight days, Sarada Viswanathan has been searching for her partner and his family from thousands of kilometres away. The 23-year-old medical student has turned her living room in Sydney into a makeshift search centre, working with family and friends, scouring satellite maps and piecing together every scrap of information she can find.

Her partner, Rishab Iyer, 23, was on a pilgrimage to Mount Kailash with his parents, Sreedharan and Lakshmi Iyer, and younger brother, Rudhra, 20, when a glacier collapse triggered a wall of water and mud along the Nepal-Tibet border on August 26.

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The disaster has left more than 1,200 people dead and over 4,200 missing, including Indians and people of Indian origin from across the world. For Sarada, however, the numbers have a deeply personal meaning: four of the missing are the family she is desperately trying to find.

Tracking clues

Sarada has been piecing together the family's movements through app data, GPS information and location records from a hired Jeep. One set of location records appears to show Rishab's last known location, followed minutes later by his brother's location, before the trail goes cold roughly 30 minutes before the flood struck.

“This is the last known location of Rishab that I have on Life360. This is the hotel that they were staying at, this is around 8:45. And here we have his brother's location about five minutes later... So we can see that they've gone up on the highway,” she said.

The search has moved beyond conventional missing-person appeals to tracking digital clues. But Sarada says the technology companies that may hold crucial location information have not provided the data she is seeking.

Data roadblock

“I haven't heard from him in eight days after a natural disaster that's killed thousands of people. I think it's more than reasonable for you to provide that kind of information... it feels like a bit of a too little, too late situation, and we don't want it to get to that point where it is actually too late,” she said.

According to her, Apple and Optus have declined her requests for location information, citing privacy concerns, while Life360 has said it will not comment on an active case.

Relatives of another family travelling in the same tour group, but using a local Nepali number, were able to obtain a signal trace through Nepali authorities. Sarada, working with an Australian number, has not been able to get similar information.

A race against time

“Look, I understand it, I understand that there are privacy laws, but in my personal opinion, I don't think that any of those people are really going to care if we see their data, access records, just because I know that they would want us to save them as well,” Sarada said.

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On Thursday, Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong said Australia would share telecom data with Nepali authorities. For families still waiting for news, the move could provide a crucial new lead.

“I think Rishab, Rudhra, Sreedharan uncle and Lakshmi aunty, they're all just pillars of the community... they always put other people in front of themselves. And that's why I think we need to put them before ourselves for once, this time,” she said.

Thirty-eight Australians are among those reported missing in Nepal. For Sarada, the search is now a race against time — and a fight to bring the Iyer family home.