DUBAI // An emotional and anxious crowd of family and friends met six young men from Dubai as they returned to the UAE on Wednesday, safe from the devastation of Nepal’s 7.8-magnitude quake.
Thanweer Rawther, who was among the group of Indian trekkers who lost contact with family and friends on Saturday after the quake struck, said they were met with tears and cheers as they walked out of arrivals at Dubai International Airport in the early hours of Wednesday.
“Everyone was crying actually,” he said. “I think every single one of my family and friends were there. The friends and family of everyone were there.
“They were all overwhelmed and we were all overwhelmed.”
The 25-year-old and friends Hadil Haneef, Mohammed Azhar Ali, Mazhar Mohideen, Sunil Gandhi and Nihad Khan had arrived in Kathmandu on Friday.
Their relatives knew they had been at their hotel, The Last Resort, in Sindhupalchok district, and the last they had heard from the group was before they had tried the Canyon Swing, the world’s highest giant swing and a popular local attraction.
The group had arrived back at the resort when the quake struck. “It started off as a tremor then it just went ballistic,” said Thanweer, who was in a locker room collecting his bag at the time. “The whole room started shaking. That is when it hit me – something bad has happened. I went to check on my friends who were all out in the open.
“It got really severe. That is when it hit me and I thought ‘we have to leave, we have to leave’.”
All the guests were rounded up by hotel management and about an hour after the quake they started moving to a safe village nearby, he said.
They were walking up a hill when a strong tremor struck, forcing the crowd to move quicker to a safe spot where residents and tourists worked together to set up tents.
Local villagers were starting to seek refuge. The area already shattered by the devastation the earthquake caused.
“We had no network in that area,” he said. “Once the earthquake hit, everything shut down – communication, electricity, everything – and we literally had no hope of getting in touch with anyone.
“The first thing that hit my mind was that our family and friends won’t be able to hear from us any time soon and they would be worried sick.
“But in the area there was no network and there was nothing we could do about it.
“We were just holding our phones up just waiting for some kind of signal.”
After an agonising wait for news about Thanweer and his friends, the family finally heard from the group early on Tuesday. Thanweer managed to phone his family to tell them that he was on the way to the airport to get a flydubai flight from Kathmandu.
One of the first things Thanweer did when he got home was eat a big meal.
“When we were there, there was not a lot of food so we did not eat a lot, just bits of fish. So I had a really, really great meal when I got home,” he said.
His sister Thanzeem, 29, described the family home as a “mad house” yesterday as friends and family welcomed Thanweer home.
“Everyone we know has been ringing the phone off the hook,” she said.
jbell@thenational.ae