A month after Nepal-China floods, families await answers about more than 50 missing Ukrainians

BANGKOK -- Olena Kalynychenko was looking forward to sharing the chrysanthemum tea she had bought in China with her partner.“She said, ‘When I come back home, we will drink the tea made from Chinese flowers,’” said Oles Visich, Kalynychenko’s partner. He has now been waiting for news about her for a month, after she and thousands of others disappeared in catastrophic flooding along the Nepal-China border. Her last known location was exiting China at a border post at 10:22 a.m. local time, 15 minutes before the flood. Kalynychenko, 36, was part of a group of 56 people, mostly Ukrainians, who had traveled to Mount Kailash in Tibet for a spiritual retreat. Their families' situation is a sign of how complex and time-consuming the process is of rescuing, recovering and identifying victims lost to the disaster. Given the number of missing, the process will likely take months.They disappeared while heading from China to Nepal on their way home. Some relatives say they have received no information from authorities. The Chinese government has told at least two families that their relatives left Chinese territory before the flood struck, but they haven't been able to confirm whether they ent...