Eduardo Chenandoa Ramírez Santiso contacted his family after being missing for three days following the 7.8 magnitude earthquake that devastated Kathmandu and surrounding areas of central Nepal. Santiso, 27, called his family on Monday, according to an interview with his sister, conducted by CNN. The young man left his home state of Quintana Roo in late March of 2015 to submerge himself in the spiritual doctrines of Hare Krishna. Until Monday, he was one of the 37 Mexicans initially unaccounted for in the earthquake that has killed over 4,000.
“I’m okay,” Santiso said in a brief phone call, according to his sister. “It was horrible, I was in the street, and I saw all of the buildings around me fall.”
Santiso plans to return to Mexico as soon as possible. Yet with the Kathmandu airport overwhelmed, that’s unlikely to happen soon. It’s not just cultural and religious tourists that are stuck, but also thousands of Indian migrant workers trying to get home, and domestic Nepali travelers desperate to reach their families in other cities in Nepal. Incoming air traffic is overwhelming the airport, and many planes -- possibly carrying volunteers and supplies -- were turned away by air traffic controllers on Sunday.
“I’m fine. They might send me back on a returning military plane, or at least get me close. I don’t know,” Santiso said.
All 37 Mexican nationals reported missing during the earthquake have been located and are safe, according to Mexico’s Secretariat of External Relations (SRE), which continues to monitor the situation of missing Mexican nationals in Nepal, and can be reached on Twitter @AsistenciaSRE.
“Twelve left for India, others to China, and a few are on their way directly to Mexico. Nine have decided to stay because they work or live there and the rest are in the process of being evacuated or repatriated, depending on the case,” Melba Pría, Mexico's ambassador to India told Milenio Television.
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