DURBAN - Prayer and hope
This is what the Govender family in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, is clinging to as they wait for their daughter to return home.
Terricia Govender is among the South Africans missing in deadly flash floods in Nepal.
The 33-year-old Durbanite was on a pilgrimage in the South Asian country.
For her mother, Linda Govender, the last memory of her daughter is a video call on Tuesday that lasted four hours.
Linda said her daughter was gushing with excitement over her experiences during the pilgrimage and could not wait to come back home.
“One of the reasons she was happy was because she met with a spiritual guru, which is what she always wanted to do. The video call lasted four hours because she was shopping. She was also walking down the streets telling us what she would be buying for me, her grandfather, and grandmother.”
But what seemed like an ordinary call ended up being the last time Linda heard from her daughter.
She said when she heard the news of the devastating flash floods, she was devastated, but even so, she has not lost hope in her daughter's safe return.
“Terricia is a very strong girl and she's a quick thinker. So we're just praying and hoping that, you know, by some miracle, she and maybe some of the others in the group have made it, you know, to a place where they're just waiting to be rescued. We want to see her back home," she said.
Gift of the Givers is in contact with rescue organisations in Nepal about the possibility of lending a hand.
Gift of the Givers founder Imtiaz Sooliman said they have a rescue team on standby, but they are not able to deploy at this stage due to the hazardous conditions there.
He said disaster management teams they worked with in 2015 painted a grim picture of water levels being too high.
Gift of the Givers previously responded to Nepal after the devastating 2015 earthquake, when its rescuers and medical teams helped in the aftermath of the disaster.
“The disaster management guys again told us that one of the reasons they don't want to send anybody in, besides the high water, is that they're afraid that a dam in the area is getting overflooded, and they're afraid that the dam wall is going to break, and they're going to have more chaos.
“So those who have survived may be at high risk in the area itself. And they said, look, they, as a government, haven't had the opportunity to go to the area because there is no access. All the roads have been washed away, and the only access is by helicopter, which can't land," he said.