New Delhi: Twenty-one bodies, which floated downstream in the muddy rivers from Nepal’s 26 August deadly flash floods, have been recovered from bordering districts in Uttar Pradesh over the last few days, officials said.
A senior official of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) told ThePrint that bodies started emerging in the Gandak River since Saturday—four days after the floods hit Nepal. Till Monday, around 21 bodies had been fished out.
“We have been carrying out the process of getting the bodies out with the district teams. The bodies in varying conditions. Some are too decomposed for recognition. We are in touch with the Nepal authorities to identify and return the bodies,” the official said.
The official said that rescue teams were anticipating bodies to be swept downstream to the Indian side, considering the scale of the Nepal disaster. While teams are monitoring water levels on the Indian side to ensure timely evacuations in bordering villages if the water entered India, district authorities were also directed to monitor dead bodies floating in the river.
This was because the Bhote-Koshi river system, where the floods occurred in Nepal, joins the Trishuli River as it travels downstream. In India, the same river is called Gandak.
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More bodies likely to float up
Vaibhav Mishra, additional district magistrate of Uttar Pradesh’s Kushinagar District, told ThePrint that district rescue and relief teams have recovered 13 bodies as of Monday.
“We have not been able to establish the identities of the bodies. A few bodies were recovered from near the Khadda tehsil. The currents are quite strong, so the process of recovering the bodies has also become difficult,” Mishra said.
Eight bodies have also been recovered from the Maharajganj district—another area near the India-Nepal border.
“Our teams had fished out six bodies till Sunday night; another two were recovered today (Monday),” the Maharajganj district magistrate’s office said.
The coming few days are likely to see more bodies floating up on the Indian side.
“Once the level of the river water comes down, we might find more bodies,” the NDRF official said.
(Edited by Saptak Datta)