SAN FRANCISCO, CA — A retired UC Davis business school dean and his wife are among the thousands missing after devastating flash floods in the Nepal-Tibet region. Rao Unnava, who stepped down in June as dean of the Graduate School of Management, and his wife, Vasundhara, a former business lecturer, were traveling on a retirement trip when the flooding struck.
Friends said the couple had been looking forward to the journey. Family and friends believe they may have crossed into Tibet just before the flooding began.
Couple was traveling on a retirement trip when the flooding began
Unnava retired in June after leading UC Davis’ Graduate School of Management. Vasundhara previously worked as a business lecturer.
The couple had set out on what friends described as a celebratory retirement trip. Jean-Francois Coget, a friend of Unnava’s, said he had lunch with him shortly before the trip and that Unnava told him he was excited to go.
Coget said he was heartbroken when he learned the couple was missing. Friends and relatives have been trying to piece together the timeline of where they were when the flash floods hit.
Friends believe they had just crossed into Tibet
Those close to the couple believe they had entered Tibet shortly before the flooding started. That detail has become central to efforts to understand where they may have been when conditions changed so quickly.
The flooding hit a region where travel can move across international borders quickly, and the couple’s route appears to have taken them into the area affected by the disaster. No additional information has been released about their exact location when the floods began.
Floods have left more than 1,000 dead and thousands missing
The Nepal-Tibet floods have caused widespread devastation, with more than 1,000 people killed and more than 4,000 still unaccounted for. The scale of the disaster has turned the search for missing people into a major regional effort.
Local coverage has highlighted how the toll continues to rise as responders and families try to determine who survived. The number of missing remains especially high, reflecting the fast-moving and destructive nature of the flooding.
UC Davis community reacts to the missing couple
Unnava’s friends in the UC Davis community said the news was deeply upsetting. Coget described the loss felt by people who had recently celebrated Unnava’s retirement and were expecting the trip to be a joyful milestone.
The situation has also drawn attention because both Unnava and Vasundhara were connected to higher education at UC Davis. Friends and family continue to hope for more information as the aftermath of the floods remains uncertain.
Search efforts continue amid uncertainty over the couple's fate
With more than 4,000 people still missing, the search and recovery effort in the flood zone remains incomplete. For the Unnava family and their friends, the lack of confirmed information has left painful uncertainty.
Authorities and others involved in the response have not publicly provided any confirmed update on the couple’s whereabouts. For now, they remain among the many people unaccounted for after the floods in the Nepal-Tibet area.
Local stories that matter, from GHS The Student.
