Deepest Condolences

https://linktr.ee/sharonclaydon Sharon Claydon MP speech from the Federation Chamberon 9/9/26 I rise to join this parliament in expressing my deepest condolences following the devastating floods and landslides that have struck Nepal and Tibet. The scale of this disaster is almost impossible to comprehend. Lives have been lost. Homes, roads and bridges have just been swept away. Communities have been devastated, and thousands of people remain missing—35 of those are from Australia. I am devastated to say that this disaster has impacted on my community in Newcastle. Three people with connections to Newcastle are among the Australians who remain missing. They are my constituents from Rankin Park—a woman, Reshma Patel, and brothers Rishab and Rudhra Iyer. Reshma travelled to the region on a pilgrimage to Mount Kailash. Rishab and Rudhra are joint medical program students at the University of Newcastle and were travelling with their parents. These are not just names on a list. They are members of families. They are friends, students and members of our community. There are people in Newcastle who knew them, loved them and are desperately hoping for their safe return. For their families, every passing hour without news brings another wave of fear, uncertainty and anguish. Behind every missing person is a family living through an unimaginable kind of uncertainty. I want to particularly acknowledge Reshma's husband, Bhavin, who has travelled to Nepal himself in the desperate hope of finding his beloved wife. He has visited authorities day after day. He has followed every possible lead. He has tracked information from Reshma's phone and, in an extraordinary act of determination, chartered a helicopter to fly over the area where she was last known to be. He saw the earth where buildings had once stood. He saw the landscape where he believes his wife's last location was. Still, he has kept searching because, for Bhavin, this is not an abstract disaster. This is his wife. This is the mother of his two children. This is the person he loves. He has said, simply and heartbreakingly: She is my life … I am not going without her. I think it's important that we pause on these words, because they tell us what families are enduring that statistics never can. When we hear that thousands of people are missing, it's easy for the enormity of that number to become overwhelming, but every single person represents a lifetime of memories, relationships, hopes and plans. For Reshma's family, their mother and wife are missing. For their family, there is no certainty about what tomorrow will bring, and that is an extraordinary burden to carry, and yet Bhavin continues to search. He has travelled thousands of kilometres because he simply cannot accept walking away. He's done what any of us would hope we could do for the person we love the most—he has kept going. His determination is a testament to the depth of his love for Reshma, and the anguish being felt by the families of Rishabh and Rudhra is just as profound. Both are studying medicine and both are talented young men with their whole lives ahead of them. Rishabh's partner, Sarada, has spoken about the unbearable uncertainty of not knowing where he is. She and friends have been conducting their own search from Australia, monitoring location tracking apps, following every fragment of information they can find, trying to piece together where they might be. She has said: My search will never end. I will keep looking for him until anything is confirmed. I will not give up on them. That is what families do when someone they love is missing. They do not give up. They search. They hope. They hold on to every possibility that their loved one might still be out there waiting to be found. These stories are just a reminder to all of us that behind the headlines, behind the numbers and behind the briefings are ordinary Australian families experiencing extraordinary pain. We have very large and proud Nepalese and Tibetan communities in Newcastle. I know how deeply this uncertainty is affecting them. Recently, I joined members of the Nepalese community of Newcastle and the Tibetan community of Newcastle at vigils held for those affected by this terrible disaster. Those gatherings have been incredibly moving. They have been places of prayer and solidarity but also places of profound grief and anxiety as people wait for news of loved ones and worry about the fate of their communities and homelands. Full speech available here: https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_...