Since the deadly floods coursed through the Himalayan valleys of Nepal and Tibet, the numbers of people killed have continued to rise. The bodies have surfaced in their hundreds and continue to be pulled from the thick, tar-like mud that engulfed everything after the flood waters had receded. By Sunday, the death toll stood at 797 in Nepal and Tibet.
Morgues across Nepal are already overflowing. Authorities say they are overwhelmed with the task of trying to identify the dead, many mangled beyond recognition and turning up miles from home. As places to safely store the victims run out, mass burials have begun in the district of Bharatpur.
DNA samples were taken from each body before it was given a tag and a location number, wrapped in a plastic bag and then placed in a shallow grave. The hope, said the police, was that these bodies will eventually be identified by loved ones through DNA and retrieved for proper funeral rites. In Chitwan, about 100 miles downstream from the region worst hit by the flash floods and mudslides, more than 250 bodies have washed up along the riverbanks.
But they are in such a disfigured state that only nine have been successfully identified. Many will now be buried, at least temporarily, in the forest on the edge of the city. In a bid to speed up the identification exercise, local officials have adopted a macabre approach of simply asking people to go through pictures of the bodies and look for identifying features: a necklace, a wedding ring, a tattoo, a scar.
Photos of those recovered have been placed on to PowerPoint slideshows, for relatives to sit patiently through, and have been uploaded to the Nepal police website. Outside the morgue in the capital, Kathmandu, photographs of the dead inside have been posted on the walls. Yet with more than 3,000 still reported missing in Nepal and Tibet, there are fears that the numbers of dead may still rise exponentially.
Many of the worst-hit areas, where entire villages were wiped clean away by the apocalyptic tidal wave of mud, water and debris, are still inaccessible except by army helicopter. Speaking on Sunday, the foreign secretary, Amrit Bahadur Rai, said the government had requested “more than 1,000 freezer units” for safe storage of the dead. Even in areas lower down the river valley that were decimated by the floods but have remained accessible by road, search and rescue teams have struggled to retrieve all those killed and buried in the mud.
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