From Army camps to hospitals, families desperately search for missing persons
India on Thursday handed over a second consignment of 37.5 tonnes of humanitarian assistance and disaster relief materials, including medicines and food packets, to Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Mahabir Pun to support Nepal’s flood relief and rescue efforts
AMN / NEWS DESK
The death toll in the massive flash floods in Nepal today rose to 359 as authorities in Nepal race against time to find thousands of missing people, including 285 Indian tourists, in one of the country’s worst disasters in recent years. The flash floods yesterday wreaked havoc across three districts in Nepal. Nepal Police said that 93 more bodies were recovered today.
According to Nepal Police spokesperson Abi Narayan Kafle, the bodies recovered so far include 108 in Chitwan, 62 in Nawalparasi East, 27 in Dhading, 20 in Gorkha, 17 in Rasuwa, 15 in Nawalparasi West, 12 in Nuwakot, and nine in Tanahun.
Authorities in Tibet and Nepal have reported over 1,300 people missing as of today, out of these, many were foreigners. Both authorities reported that people from more than 30 countries are missing, mainly from India, the United States, Malaysia, Ukraine, Australia, Britain, Canada, South Korea, Singapore, Germany and Russia.
Nepal Police spokesperson Kafle said, over 800 stranded people, including those injured, have been rescued from the affected areas, so far.
The flash floods were caused after an avalanche blocked the flow of the Lhende tributary of the Bhotekoshi and first hit Timure, near Nepal’s border with China at Rasuwagadhi.
Meanwhile Thursday morning, a crowd gathered at the Nepali Army’s military training centre in Maithali, Nuwakot. Traffic police struggled to manage the growing number of relatives searching for family members who have been missing in the Bhotekoshi flash flood since Wednesday morning.
Some asked whether their family members’ names appeared on the army’s list of rescued people. Others pleaded with officials to search for their missing relatives and find out what had happened to them.
Some had come looking for their loved ones who had travelled to Gosainkunda for Janai Purnima. Others sought help with rescue of people believed to be trapped inside hydropower projects and tunnels. Many left the names and details of their missing relatives with Army officials at the barracks’ entrance, hoping to trace their whereabouts.