Many Nepalis swept away in the floods aren't officially dead, leaving families in limbo

ByAzadeh Moshiri

South Asia correspondent

At the Pashupatinath temple, on the banks of the Bagmati River in Kathmandu, Madan Lal Lawat joined other families in honouring loved ones who were lost when a deadly flood tore through the China-Nepal border last month.

In Hindu tradition, when a body cannot be recovered, a symbolic effigy is made from sacred "kusha" grass to represent the dead, allowing relatives to perform last rites.

With more than 5,000 people still missing and the government ending rescue operations, this is the only way people like Lawat can honour the dead.

Five of his relatives - including his brother - were caught in the water's onslaught and are still missing. Lawat survived because he was driving his bus outside his village, Betrawati.

The last Lawat heard from survivors is that his brother Mangal died while going door-to-door, trying to warn others to leave.

"I don't know how to start over. Police say they're still searching for the bodies, but I'm not sure they'll ever be found," Lawat says.

He has little doubt they are dead.

But legally, their fate is far more complicated. In Nepal, a missing person is only presumed dead after 12 years.

Section 40 of Nepal's Civil Code does allow for some exceptions, but it does not have a provision for disasters like the flood witnessed last month.

Families like Lawat's have told the BBC they are struggling to obtain death certificates, affecting everything from accessing flood compensation to the transfer of properties and even inheritance.

Relatives can receive up to 25,000 rupees (£122; $162) for funeral costs, in addition to about 200,000 rupees (£981; $1,302) in bereavement compensation for the first relative who died, and 100,000 rupees (£491; $651) for each additional death.

But this is only possible once they submit a death certificate. So as families try to rebuild their lives, many are now caught in an administrative nightmare.

"In view of the current disaster, the law is outdated," says constitutional law expert, Bipin Adhikari.

He explains the law was meant to account for people who travelled abroad and weren't heard from for years. "But technology has advanced now, it isn't as difficult to send or receive information," he argues.

For Lawat, the legal minefield has made an already devastating loss even harder to navigate.

When he tried to obtain a death certificate last week, officials at the local municipality office turned him away. "They said they're still discussing the death certificate issue. We aren't sure what to do now. There's so much uncertainty," he tells us.

Even when bodies are recovered, identifying their identities is a slow and challenging task. More than 1,400 bodies have been recovered so far, and Nepal has little experience in processing DNA at such scale. In some cases, authorities have taken DNA samples, then buried the bodies with markers in the ground, should families claim them.

Given the scale of damage and loss, families say compensation is desperately needed.

Nepal's latest assessment counts 7,570 private buildings damaged or destroyed, home to nearly 33,000 people based on census data.

The BBC visited Lawat's village Betrawati just days after the disaster, once the roads to the district of Rasuwa had been cleared. For days, this area had been cut off from the capital Kathmandu, and struggling with a shortage of basic supplies including petrol.

The damage in the village was staggering. The ground was nothing but hardened mud and silt. Footage of the flood showed it had swallowed most of the village in just minutes. There was no sign of its bustling market, the local Uttargaya School was in ruins, the houses swept away, and school buses were turned over.

Betrawati straddles flood-devastated Rasuwa and Nuwakot, and is part of the Bidur municipality, where the government estimates more than 3,000 buildings have been damaged or destroyed. It's the largest amount of any municipality.

Local governments are now urging the prime minister's office to figure out a way to resolve the death confirmation issue.

"Everything is on hold," Bidur's Mayor, Rajan Shrestha, told the BBC.

He said it could take up to 12 years for relatives to access the funds they are entitled to.

For one of South Asia's smallest economies, finding money for compensation is a challenge, and the sums on offer are small when compared with the scale of the losses.

The government puts damage to personal belongings alone at £123 million ($165 million) across more than 8,300 households.

This implies losses of about £14,800 ($20,000) on average per household, though this figure is only based on census data and modelling, and doesn't represent the exact cost per family.

The financial toll makes the death certificates vital for families trying to recover from the disaster.

Shrestha is calling on the federal government to resolve the issue as soon as possible. Until then, he says his hands are tied.

"We understand the emotional pain for families who have already performed funeral rituals, but officials must work within legal boundaries to avoid future liabilities."

The government has told the BBC it is trying to find a solution.

In a statement, the prime minister's office said it was "aware of the difficulties" the law may cause families in "exceptional circumstances, including disasters". The home ministry said the government was taking the issue seriously and was ready to amend the law, if required.

The legal hurdles families are facing comes as Nepal faces a steep reconstruction bill, which the government says could cost up to £3.6bn ($4.8bn).

At the UN General Assembly in New York, Prime Minister Balen Shah explained rebuilding the country would require more than 10% of its gross domestic product, an enormous burden on the country's economy.

Dozens of public buildings including schools, health clinics and hospitals have been wrecked by the floods. That's in addition to roads, bridges, wastewater treatment plants and hydropower projects.

Shah is now pushing for grant-based international support rather than new loans. Nepal is one of the lowest emitters of global greenhouse gas emissions, yet one one of the most vulnerable countries to global warming.

"When a climate-driven disaster destroys infrastructure of a poor country, the answer cannot simply be another mega-loan or a patchwork of small grants," he told a room full of world leaders.

This is not the first time Nepal has had to recover after a devastating natural disaster.

For Tisum Ghale, the past month has been painfully familiar.

He and his family lost their home in an earthquake in 2015, and became displaced for months. They eventually settled in Betrawati.

But the place that was once a refuge is where 19 of his relatives were killed in last month's flood, including five of his sisters. He survived because he was doing construction work outside of the village.

Once again, he is without a home.

"I have lost everything," he said.

So far he has received no compensation. He desperately needs the money after his home was washed away and he looks after eight children left behind by his sisters. He is one of the thousands displaced, living across 37 holding centres in northern Nepal.

Like Lawati and thousands of other families, Ghale plans on holding a funeral without his loved ones' bodies.

He hopes the law will eventually recognise what he already knows: his loved ones will not be coming home.

Additional reporting: Rajneesh Bhandari