More than a hundred Indian citizens are missing after severe flooding on the Nepal-Tibet border, where they were travelling through Nepal toward Tibet for the Kailash-Mansarovar pilgrimage. The annual journey draws thousands of people along difficult Himalayan routes, but many pilgrims were waiting in different parts of Nepal to cross the border when the disaster struck.

Mount Kailash and Lake Mansarovar are sacred to Hindus, who visit to pray, perform religious rites and seek spiritual purification. The sites are also important to Buddhists and Jains, and many pilgrims view completing the journey at least once as a long-held spiritual aspiration. Indian travellers commonly enter Nepal before attempting to reach the Chinese-controlled Tibetan region via mountain roads.

The Rasuwa area is a key gateway for the pilgrimage route, but Wednesday's flooding washed away the Miteri Bridge at the Nepal-China border and damaged several roads. Mobile-phone and fibre communications were also disrupted, making it difficult to locate pilgrims, contact them or update their families. Rescue efforts to find the missing have become more complex as floodwaters, glacier ice and landslide debris damaged transport links and isolated border areas.