Nepal floods: Bodies keep surfacing. Morgues are running out of space

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The identification crisis is also being closely watched in India. The External Affairs Ministry has said that 320 Indian nationals remain uncontactable after the disaster. Many Indians were travelling through the affected region, including pilgrims headed towards Mount Kailash in Tibet.

For families still waiting for news, the growing pressure on Nepal’s morgues adds urgency to the search for a way to identify those who have been recovered.

Morgues run out of space

In Chitwan, where the number of recovered bodies has overwhelmed hospital capacity, an unused building of the Industrial Enterprise Development Institute in Bharatpur is being converted into a temporary body-storage centre.

The facility is expected to provide space for around 250 bodies. If that capacity is exceeded, authorities have identified the electric crematorium at Devghat as another option. Air conditioners and dry ice are being arranged to slow decomposition.

But the scale of the recovery operation is already far beyond the original numbers. By Saturday, 233 bodies had been brought to Chitwan. Only four had been identified, leaving 229 unidentified and unclaimed.

Authorities have now begun burying the 229 unidentified bodies after collecting DNA samples and assigning identification numbers to them. The decision came as the remains deteriorated and storage facilities struggled to cope with the continuing influx.

The move does not necessarily close the door on identification. DNA samples and records linked to each body can be used later if relatives come forward and a match is found.

Families search for the missing

Relatives of people missing after the flood have been arriving in Chitwan from Rasuwa, Nuwakot, Gorkha and other districts, some carrying photographs of their loved ones and hoping to find them among the recovered bodies.

For Indian families, the uncertainty is particularly acute. With 320 Indian nationals still reported uncontactable, identification of recovered remains could become an important part of establishing what happened to people whose whereabouts remain unknown.

Authorities have cautioned, however, that nationality cannot simply be inferred from the identity of the missing. The 229 bodies being buried in Chitwan remain unidentified.

A race against decomposition

The problem is not only finding space. It is also time. In Pokhara, 102 bodies recovered from the Trishuli and Narayani riverbanks have been transferred for identification and post-mortem examinations after local facilities ran short of capacity. Hospitals and facilities in the district have a combined capacity of about 88 bodies.

The remains are being kept at temperatures of roughly 2 to 6 degrees Celsius. At those temperatures, bodies can be preserved for only about 10 days to two weeks, while longer-term preservation would require sub-zero facilities that are not available in Pokhara.

As decomposition advances, visual identification becomes increasingly difficult. Authorities are therefore relying on photographs, fingerprints, post-mortems and DNA testing, alongside identifying details such as tattoos, clothing and jewellery where available.

One case illustrates the difficulty. A 25-year-old excavator operator, Suman Gole, was identified through a distinctive tattoo after damage to his face made visual identification difficult.

Identification becomes harder as bodies move downstream

The flood carried people and debris through the Trishuli and Narayani river systems, meaning bodies can be recovered far from where people were last seen. That makes matching remains to missing-person reports even more difficult.

In Nawalparasi East, authorities have also faced a shortage of forensic expertise, with local medical personnel carrying out basic post-mortems while officials seek additional specialist help.

Police are photographing bodies, taking fingerprints, conducting post-mortems and collecting DNA samples for testing. Unidentified bodies are being assigned tag numbers so that burial records can be linked to future identification efforts.

For families in Nepal and India, that means the physical recovery of a body may not immediately bring an answer. In some cases, DNA testing and the matching of records may be the only way to establish the identity of someone whose remains have been carried far downstream.

The flood may have separated families from their relatives in a matter of minutes. The search to give those families a name, and an answer,  could take much longer.