Overview
- A glacier collapse on August 26 sent floods down the Bhotekoshi and Trishuli rivers, leaving more than 1,000 confirmed dead and about 4,000 people reported missing.
- Morgues and temporary holding centres across districts such as Chitwan, Rasuwa and Kathmandu filled quickly, forcing officials to open secured mass‑grave sites at locations including Gokarneshwor and Devghat.
- Security forces and forensic teams are supervising burials, photographing remains, assigning tracking numbers and taking DNA and other samples before bodies are placed in marked graves.
- The cabinet has amended the 2021 Unidentified and Unclaimed Bodies Management Guidelines to allow limited disaster autopsies, mandatory sample and DNA retention, and temporary marked burials to preserve future identification and repatriation.
- Families will need to provide reference samples and officials will require lab capacity and coordinated records to match remains, a process that officials and forensic experts say will be lengthy and resource intensive.