Overview

• On September 27, the Union Home Ministry and the Registrar General approved special registration to declare the long-missing as deceased.
• Fifty-one days after the August 5 flash floods, only two bodies have been recovered and 67 people, including 25 Nepali citizens, remain untraced.
• The approval waives the usual seven-year wait under the Registration of Births and Deaths Act, echoing an exemption used after the 2021 Chamoli disaster.
• Families must file a missing report at the person’s home jurisdiction, after which the SDM conducts an inquiry, issues a 30-day public notice, and—absent objections—grants a certificate that unlocks Rs 5 lakh in state assistance.
• A state scientific panel’s preliminary assessment attributes the disaster to intense localized high-altitude rainfall destabilizing moraines, ruling out a glacial lake outburst.