Nepal begins burials as flood death toll rises to 752

KATHMANDU, August 30 — Nepal has commenced the burial of some of the hundreds of bodies recovered following devastating floods, following the collection of DNA samples and the marking of the remains for potential future retrieval by families. Traditionally, Hindus in Nepal cremate their deceased on funeral pyres, making these burials a measure of long-term storage until the families can claim the bodies.

Foreign Secretary Amrit Bahadur Rai informed reporters that every individual interred was meticulously documented, while also urgently appealing for international assistance, stating that Nepal requires "over a thousand" freezer units to properly store the deceased. The declaration of burials came after Nepal's disaster ministry updated its toll to 752 recovered bodies and 2,502 people missing.

This tally includes 589 foreigners still unaccounted for. Chinese state media had earlier confirmed 16 fatalities in Tibet and 546 people missing following Wednesday's disaster, raising the overall death toll to 768 and 3,048 people unaccounted for. Rai stated, in accordance with standard protocols such as those of the ICRC (Red Cross), that the mortal remains of unidentified victims have been temporarily buried.

Medical teams had extracted DNA samples from each victim before burial to facilitate future matches, allowing families to retrieve the remains for necessary rituals. Nepal has been seeking freezer storage units and DNA testing kits, as it grapples with the overwhelming number of bodies to store safely. Rai emphasized that "many dead bodies have been collected, and they have started decomposing. To preserve public health, we had to bury the decomposing bodies."