Families of the missing in Nepal's flash floods perform symbolic cremations

Eight days after Nepal's flash floods, families who can't find loved ones perform symbolic cremations.

Transcript

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

More than 1,200 people are now confirmed dead from last week's floods in Nepal, and about 5,000 are unaccounted for. The number keeps rising. Families who can't find their loved ones are cremating their effigies instead, and authorities hold out hope that bodies in their care might be claimed. NPR's Diaa Hadid reports.

DIAA HADID, BYLINE: A large, yellow bulldozer is seen in footage shared by the Indian daily, The Hindu. It trundles into a hilly forest in the devastated district of Chitwan. It scrapes out red earth, a trench to bury unclaimed flood victims. Officials hope this will be a temporary resting place because Nepalese, who are mostly Hindu, cremate their loved ones, but they're being buried because the morgues were too full. Local media reported that at least 340 bodies were found nearby.

Officials have logged DNA into a database, bearing each corpse with a tag visible above the ground. That identifies the dead in case their DNA can be matched with a living relative. The police say more than 560 relatives of the missing have offered their DNA samples. Anil Thapa, an inspector with the Chitwan Police, told the Associated Press...

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ANIL THAPA: Then if DNA matches, we can extract the dead bodies from the ground.

HADID: Nepal's police say on X, they've temporarily buried more than 880 bodies. Other nations are helping extract and process the DNA says a spokesman for Nepal's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. They include, he says...

LOK BAHADUR POUDEL CHHETRI: The 19-member forensic team from India. A five-member specialized forensic team from China arrived yesterday. The Disaster Victim Identification team of six individuals from Singapore has just arrived.

HADID: Spokesman Lok Bahadur Poudel Chhetri added that...

CHHETRI: An additional Korean forensic team has also joined the works.

HADID: He says Nepal has requested more equipment to facilitate this grim task, including more bags for human remains. But some families have given up hope of finding their loved ones. So in Kathmandu, by the river of the revered Pashupatinath Temple, a Hindu priest blows on a conch shell, a funeral rite to ward off evil.

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HADID: Mourners create effigies of the dead, stick figures made from bundles of holy kusha grass. They're bound in yellow cloth inscribed with the name of the Hindu god Ram. One family lines up six of them. They're piled onto pyres with straw, garlanded with marigolds. Grieving male relatives with freshly shaven heads circle them three times, then set them alight from a flame flickering in a clay pot.

MAMITA BHANDARI, BYLINE: (Speaking Nepali).

TULSI PRASAD: (Speaking Nepali).

BHANDARI: (Speaking Nepali).

PRASAD: (Speaking Nepali).

HADID: Hindu priest Tulsi Prasad (ph) tells NPR producer Mamita Bhandari he's performed countless rituals like this recently. He says the souls of those who died in natural disasters are immortal.

PRASAD: (Speaking Nepali).

HADID: One of the men undertaking this symbolic cremation is Birendra Basnet (ph).

BIRENDRA BASNET: (Speaking Nepali).

HADID: He says he too lost six family members. Only one was found, his sister-in-law, who washed up on a river bank.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Speaking Nepali).

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: (Speaking Nepali).

HADID: And he's not alone. Another man at the Hindu temple declines to give his name. He points to the other side of the river bank also full of people performing the same symbolic ritual. Yesterday, he says, it was filled with people, and tomorrow, it may be full again.

Diaa Hadid, NPR News, with Mamita Bhandari in Kathmandu.

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