Sub Inspector Hari Sharan Dhakal has spoken out about the crushing workload of reuniting flood victims with their families as Nepal’s death toll climbs past 1,000.
Dhakal, stationed at the Nepal Poultry Entrepreneurs Forum in Bharatpur, manages a database of 837 missing individuals from a desk cluttered with laptops and desperate relatives’ documents. His office has become a gathering point for anxious families seeking news, while new arrivals continuously add names to the expanding list.
“It’s too much challenging,” Dhakal said per CNN.
“People come to us crying. We feel their pain.”
The identification process grows harder by the day. Many victims spent several days submerged in the river following last Wednesday’s sudden glacial collapse high in the Himalayas, which also triggered a magnitude 5.2 seismic event. Dhakal explained that recovered bodies often look “totally different” from the smiling photographs families provide, forcing his team to rely on physical markers like unique tattoos to make matches.
The grim work yielded 12 successful reunifications on Monday evening alone at the forum. In some heartbreaking cases, school ties found on deceased children have helped authorities track down their parents.
Rescue teams now scour approximately 70km of riverbanks, while officials coordinate with hospitals nationwide to collect DNA samples from victims. Drone surveillance monitors newly formed high-altitude water pools that threaten additional flooding. Authorities estimate the full recovery effort will require approximately $5 billion. The Red Cross estimates 90,000 people have been severely impacted across the region.
Among the thousands still missing are 33 British nationals, including 25-year-old Sumitra, who vanished just hours after a final phone call with her husband, Pramod Poudel. Poudel said about their last exchange: “When I last spoke to her, she said to me, ‘How are you? I love you so much’.”
In neighboring Tibet, authorities confirmed 546 individuals remain missing, including 18 Americans and 15 British citizens caught in the devastation. The official death toll across the affected region has surpassed 1,000, with an additional 4,400 people still unaccounted for.