In Nepal, burials of victims of the devastating flood that struck a mountainous region on the border with China last week are continuing today, even though the victims have not yet been identified and search-and-rescue operations have not yet been declared over—tasks of enormous proportions, given the extent of the devastation.
More than 3,000 people, including foreigners, are still missing on both sides of the border in the rugged Himalayan region, which is particularly cherished by mountaineers and pilgrims.
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The disaster claimed the lives of nearly 800 people—at least according to official figures—and caused widespread damage.
Search and rescue teams continue to work around the clock, under precarious conditions and despite the danger posed by a new rise in water levels. In particular, they hope to rescue about a hundred workers trapped in an underground tunnel.
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But five days after the disaster, hope of finding survivors in the sea of mud and debris—and in entire villages that were swept away or wiped off the map—has all but vanished.
Families and relatives of the missing are flocking to hospitals and morgues to find their loved ones, particularly in Baratpur, in southern Nepal, where photographs of the deceased are displayed on a screen in a reception hall.
The force of the torrents carried some 250 bodies to the Chitwan region, more than 100 kilometers away.
Crews are working to clear rubble from the Trishuli Hydropower Station in Nepal, where 100 people are thought to be trapped following deadly flash floods.
The prime minister’s office says efforts are “intensifying” to rescue those feared trapped inside the tunnel; however, there has… pic.twitter.com/qs3HAWHplk
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Sobha Antikari is convinced: a body found on a riverbank belongs to a childhood friend of hers. “It looks like him,” she tells a volunteer. But the volunteer counters that identification can only be confirmed through a DNA test.
The work is long and arduous, and must be carried out under intense time pressure. Yesterday, for public health reasons, Nepalese authorities began burying victims without waiting for them to be identified.
They clarified that they first collect DNA samples, and that the burials are temporary in cases involving Hindus. This will allow families, once the victims have been officially identified, to exhume and cremate their loved ones, as tradition dictates.
Many of the victims are “in a state of decomposition,” explained Amrit Bahadur Rai, Secretary General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
This is primarily because the facilities lack the capacity required to handle so many victims. The Baratpur morgue can accommodate only about twenty bodies. The authorities have placed many of the bodies in an un-air-conditioned space belonging to a merchants’ association.
In Devgat, in the same region, where unidentified victims were buried, the police placed numbers on each grave.
Experts and scientists attribute the disaster to the collapse of a massive glacier that transformed a tranquil little river into a raging torrent in an instant.
According to the most recent official reports, 797 bodies—781 on the Nepalese side and 16 on the Tibetan side, an autonomous region of China—had been recovered from the mud and debris as of yesterday.
Although hundreds of others were rescued and/or evacuated urgently, authorities in both countries do not know the fate of at least 3,000 others, 2,502 in Nepal and 546 in China. Among the missing are hundreds of foreigners.
Rescue teams are working under the threat of a new disaster. On the Chinese side, rescuers had to “move to a safe location” after a landslide formed a new lake, according to state media. On the Nepalese side, authorities advised “caution” due to rising water levels in the Bote Koshi River.
Rescuers hope to be able to pull out workers alive from a tunnel at the Trisuli 3 hydroelectric dam construction site. According to authorities, about 100 people are trapped inside the tunnel.
Yesterday, rescuers were unable to make contact with them, according to the Prime Minister’s Office. Plans are in place to blast a passageway so that rescuers wearing oxygen masks can enter the tunnel.
About 80 employees from Nepal’s disaster response services are participating in the operation, with support from teams sent by India, China, and South Korea.
Source: Proto Thema
