NEW DELHI (Indian Catholic News) — The All India Catholic Union (AICU) has called upon its members and affiliated organisations across India to hold the victims and their families in prayer, and to consider what practical support can be extended to relief agencies working in Nepal.
The organisation, Asia’s oldest lay Catholic organisation and now in its 107th year, expressed “profound grief and solidarity with the people of Nepal following the catastrophic floods” that struck the Trishuli river basin on Aug. 26.
A glacial collapse near Langtang Lirung, the highest peak in Nepal’s Langtang Himal subrange, triggered massive flash floods and mudslides across seven districts, destroying the Gyirong Port complex on the Nepal-China border.
Entire settlements along the river have been swept away, bridges destroyed and livelihoods erased within minutes. The AICU regards this as “among the gravest natural disasters to strike the Himalayan region in living memory.”
The disaster carried victims’ remains up to 240 kilometres downstream into India. At least 903 people are dead and 4,247 remain unaccounted for, including 3,655 Nepalis and 592 foreigners. Across the border in Tibet, Chinese state media reports 16 dead and 546 missing.
AICU’s newly elected National President, A Chinnappan, said the organisation stood in mourning with the bereaved families.
“This tragedy does not recognise borders,” Chinnappan said. “Nepali villagers, Chinese labourers and Indians have all perished together in the same waters. Our grief, and our prayers, extend to every family touched by this calamity, regardless of nationality or faith.”
The AICU has written to Father Silas Bogati, Apostolic Administrator of the Vicariate Apostolic of Nepal, offering condolences, and has asked “that the Church’s charitable effort be strengthened wherever the AICU or its affiliated bodies in India can be of assistance.”
The group prayed for “the safe recovery of the hundreds still missing, for strength for the rescue and recovery teams working under extremely difficult conditions, and for the swift and dignified rehousing of survivors who have lost everything.” It expressed hope that Nepal, supported by the international community, could “provide displaced families with secure shelter before the onset of Nepal’s winter.”
The floods coincided with Teej, the three-day Hindu festival ordinarily marked by prayer and celebration among Nepali communities at home and abroad. The AICU noted “the particular poignancy of a season of festivity turning instead into one of mourning and search for the dead”, hoping that “the spirit of communal solidarity associated with the festival might now be channelled into the relief effort.”
The organisation stated that “disasters of this magnitude, occurring as they do across an international boundary shared by Nepal and China, ought to prompt closer regional cooperation on early warning systems and glacial monitoring in the Himalayas, given the evident fragility of that terrain.”
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