Nepal floods: Family begins search for Himachal engineer with Upper Trishuli hydel plant
· India · Indian Express, The Guardian
Sukhvinder Rattan, a 30-year-old site engineer from Una district in Himachal Pradesh, has been missing since flash floods triggered by a collapsing glacier struck Nepal on August 26. Rattan had been working at the 216-MW Upper Trishuli Hydropower Project, which supplies electricity to India, for the past three years. His elder brother Varinder Rattan flew in from Dubai and reached Kathmandu along with their cousin Shubham to coordinate the search, but authorities asked them to remain at an Army rescue centre rather than travel to the affected area. Rattan's wife Saravjit Kaur, their one-and-a-half-year-old son Mevansh, and his 70-year-old father Hussan Lal Rattan, a retired CISF personnel, are awaiting updates from Una. The last contact was a phone call on August 25, when Rattan promised to return home in November for Diwali.
Why it matters
The case highlights the human cost of the Nepal glacier-flood disaster on Indian workers employed at cross-border hydropower projects, with the Upper Trishuli plant directly feeding electricity to India. The family's search is now bottlenecked at an Army rescue centre in Kathmandu, raising the question of how India is coordinating with Nepal to trace its nationals.
Read the original report — Indian Express
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