Nepal marked a solemn milestone in its mourning for the hundreds killed in the devastating flood along the border with China, as families observed Hindu rites for the traditional final day of grief while rescue teams pressed on, buoyed by four astonishing recoveries in recent days.
Government offices across the Hindu-majority nation of 30 million — and Nepali missions abroad — were instructed to fly the national flag at half-mast to observe the 13th day after death, the home ministry said in a statement.
For many faithful, the day carries deep significance as the last day of mourning, commemorated through rituals and food offerings.
The disaster began on 26 August, when a glacier broke off and unleashed a massive wall of mud and rock that crashed into a river on Nepal’s Himalayan frontier with China’s Tibet, sweeping away towns and villages and smothering roads and highways beneath thick layers of debris.
At least 1,380 people have been killed by the mudslide and more than 5,500 are missing.
Relatives of Hom Bahadur Tamang, who went missing in the flash floods, take part in Buddhist prayers in Trishuli
Even as mourners gathered, rescuers in Nepal reported four survivals over recent days, including a Chinese national pulled alive from a tunnel on Saturday.
Two hydropower workers were brought out of another tunnel on Friday, and a Nepali woman was rescued from her house after it was buried, also on Saturday.
Search and rescue efforts are now heavily concentrated around hydropower stations in the affected region, army spokesperson Raja Ram Basnet said, where officials believe more people could still be trapped but alive.
On the Chinese side of the border, officials said yesterday that workers recovered 12 additional bodies as teams continued searching in Tibet for hundreds still unaccounted for.
No ceremonies amid ongoing search
Despite the national mourning, the government is not holding broader observances for the final day, citing the continuing hunt for survivors.
“There are no government programmes organised as the rescue and search operation is still going on in the flood-hit areas,” Phanindra Paudel of the National Emergency Operation Centre (NEOC) told Reuters.
Rescuers carry one of the two men found alive in a tunnel at the Trishuli Hydropower Plant last week
President Ram Chandra Paudel, Nepal’s ceremonial head of state, was visiting flood-hit areas and was expected to inspect the extent of the destruction, according to an aide.
In Nuwakot — one of the two hardest-hit districts — security personnel at the district jail moved 923 prisoners to a higher building before flood waters reached the low-lying facility, Prime Minister Balendra Shah said in a social media post.
Authorities also detained 50 prisoners who broke through prison walls and gates as the flooding began and fled only about 100 metres, Mr Shah said.
