OAKLAND, Pa. — It’s been about two weeks since 20-year-old Pitt student Sudiksha Konanki disappeared while on spring break in the Dominican Republic.

Now, another Pitt student who was staying at the same resort might have some insight into what led to her disappearance.

“Our running water had stopped working,” Clara O’Bannon said. “The power had been out for around 24 hours, which caused a variety of other issues.”

On March 6, O’Bannon and her friends left their resort in the Dominican Republic for another resort due to a lack of running water and electricity. Just a few hours later, Konanki went missing from the original resort that O’Bannon was staying at.

According to O’Bannon, the condition of the resort, particularly the lack of electricity, could have made it easier for Konanki to disappear.

“We couldn’t charge our phones unless we were in the hotel lobby,” O’Bannon said. “The hotel lobby was entirely overcrowded and chaotic, so I can tell how someone may have gotten lost around there.”

Beyond an overcrowded hotel lobby, O’Bannon said the lack of electricity caused another problem with the guests.

“The power going out just caused people to be acting in a way that was not normal,” O’Bannon said. “I think people were just extra hyper, especially because the power had been out for so long, the water was in and out.

“Because the rooms were dark, and because, oh yes, there was another thing: the room keys wouldn’t work for half the rooms. Because the rooms were such an awful place to be, people were out later.”

Konanki was last seen on security footage around 4 a.m. Reports from the last people around her say she was in the water, and O’Bannon said she’s concerned about that due to the condition of the beach.

“The beach had, to my understanding, no lifeguard in place,” O’Bannon said. “So it was wavy and, that day, I believe, the red flag was up, meaning that you should not have been in the water at all. The water was extra choppy that day. I remember, in the daylight, the waves were pretty intense. You could get knocked over standing in knee deep water.”

With the Konanki family now asking for a legal declaration of death for their daughter and the search efforts not turning anything up, O’Bannon said she pains for her fellow Pitt Panther.

“It does not feel great,” she said. “I remember when I received the news, I called my parents because I knew they would be freaking out because it felt extremely close to home. I was with all Pitt students. We saw a ton of other Pitt students, and it was just a sinister experience.

“This is just an experience I don’t want to remember, really.”