Mumbai: Actor Manasi Parekh has opened up about her terrifying experience during the recent floods in Nepal, recalling how she narrowly escaped the devastation while travelling towards the ravaged Gyirong Port.
The actor, who was in Tibet for the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra when flash floods hit Nepal, described the situation as frightening, saying the “whole town was submerged” as floodwaters wreaked havoc in the region.
Manasi was part of a group sponsored by the Isha Foundation and was travelling towards the Gyirong Port immigration centre when the floods struck.
Her group was still about five hours away from the location when the deluge hit, causing widespread destruction and submerging the town.
Another group from the Isha Foundation had reached the area just minutes before the incident.
Manasi and her group were relatively fortunate as they had stayed overnight at New Dongba and were still several hours away from the affected area.
Sharing details of the harrowing experience, Manasi said, “When the incident happened, we were all on our way, halfway through to that place, actually. Because we were supposed to reach that building the next day. We were on our way to this place called New Dongba. And thankfully, we stayed overnight there. We could have gone straight away, but our itinerary was planned so that we had to stay back one night and then watch. And that’s when this horrible incident happened.”
She continued, “We were 5 hours away from the place where the incident happened. But thankfully, we were not stranded. In fact, we had reached our hotels. Now we didn’t know what to do because there was no immigration there. The whole town was submerged. And it seemed like such unreal news because we were literally there, like, 6 days earlier, when we entered China. It was a huge structure. The fact that it completely collapsed was when one realised nothing in life can be planned. Anything can happen anywhere.”
“Thankfully, we had Wi-Fi, electricity, and food. So we were just grateful for all those things, really. And we had each other. There were around 87 of us in the hotel with Sadhguru,” she added.
Manasi said the group was deeply affected by reports that several people were missing.
“Of course, we were all devastated by the news because 77 people from Isha Foundation were missing, among the 1,500 people, at least if not more. And we didn’t know what to do. We did not know what would happen or how many days we would be stuck in this place,” she said.
“Thankfully, Chinese authorities were very fast. And Isha Foundation were in touch with the PMO and with embassies of every country, including the Chinese government. Then we got permission to use another exit. So we are on the route that exit right now. We are in a safe space,” she added.
