Nepal Begins Burials As Flood Death Toll Rises to 752

Nepal said Sunday it had begun burying some of the hundreds of bodies recovered after devastating floods, after taking DNA samples and marking them so families can later retrieve them.

The dead are traditionally cremated on funeral pyres in Hindu-majority Nepal, so the burials are viewed as long-term storage until families can retrieve them.

Foreign Secretary Amrit Bahadur Rai told reporters that all those buried were carefully recorded, but also appealed for international support, saying Nepal needed “more than a thousand” freezer units to store bodies.

The announcement of the burials came as Nepal’s disaster ministry increased its toll again on Sunday to 752 bodies recovered and 2,502 people missing.

That list includes 589 foreigners unaccounted for.

Chinese state media earlier confirmed 16 dead in Tibet and 546 people missing following Wednesday’s disaster, taking the overall toll to 768 dead and 3,048 unaccounted for.

“Following standard and accepted protocols, such as those of ICRC (Red Cross), the mortal remains of the dead, especially those not recognisable… have been temporarily buried,” Rai told reporters.

“Medical teams took DNA samples from every victim prior to the burial so that families can match-reference later, and would be allowed to exhume for necessary rituals.”

Nepal has called for freezer storage units and DNA testing kits, as it is overwhelmed with the number of bodies to store safely.

“We have requested different countries for freezers; we will need more than a thousand,” Rai added.

“Many dead bodies have been collected, and they have started decomposing. To preserve public health, we had to bury the decomposing bodies,” he added.

AFP