Group from Tennessee among the missing in Nepal’s deadly flooding

Members of a meditation group based in Tennessee are among the missing in Nepal after deadly flooding.

Followers of the Isha Institute of Inner-Sciences, located in McMinnville, had just arrived on Wednesday to an immigration center at the border of Nepal and Tibet when catastrophic floodwaters rushed into the area.

The center’s founder, Sadhguru, posted an emotional video statement online, confirming that 77 followers and three volunteers are unaccounted for since the disaster occurred. Of those, 22 members are American, including at least one Tennessean.

Authorities say Wednesday’s disaster has killed at least 800 people and left more than 3,000 missing. Threats of more flooding are hampering rescue efforts.

Sadhguru travelled to the disaster site in Nepal and has continued to livestream updates via the Isha Institute’s social media sites. He explained that groups from Isha have travelled to Nepal on pilgrimages for a couple of decades and never lost any members on previous trips.

“But now, I have to say we left 80 people,” Sadhguru said in the video.

He said the group’s leader phoned to say they’d safely arrived to the immigration center earlier than required, a timing Sadhguru now regrets.

“It is our silly discipline that we have to be the first group because at the immigration center between Tibet and Nepal there is such chaos and confusion that if you come a little later it’ll take hours to pass through … I only wish we didn’t have so much discipline. I only wish we had gone there half an hour later.”

Sadhguru says the floodwaters rushed in about 10 minutes after the Isha group arrived.

On its website, the Isha Institute says it is a center for well-being that draws people from around the world “to relax, reflect, and reconnect with nature in a tranquil oasis nestled in Tennessee’s spectacular Upper Cumberland.”

The center includes what it calls Conscious Planet, focusing on environmental and social initiatives, including climate change, which Sadhguru’s video statement linked to the Nepal disaster.