Nepal flood: Mass burials conducted in Kathmandu as hospital runs out of space

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Kathmandu: Mass burial has started in the capital, Kathmandu, as well, after the morgue ran out of space after one week of the devastating flood in Nepal.

Security forces donned in Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) carried the body bags and buried them in the Gorkarna forest area on the outskirts of Kathmandu.

Amid the rainfall, the security personnel walking through the muddy forest carried the bodies and buried them with markers on top. The big bags contained the tags through which the bodies would be later exhumed and handed over to families after establishing the identities.

DNA of the buried bodies has already been kept for cross-matching with the family. As the bodies of the victims swept away by the Bhotekoshi flood are being dumped downstream, hospitals are struggling to find places to store and identify them.

The Himalayan Nation only has a capacity of storing about 350 bodies in the morgues nationwide, which has led to a shortage of space to store the bodies until the family identifies and claims them.

The remains of the victims swept by flood from Rasuwa and Nuwakot are being recovered in different parts of the nation.

The district of Chitwan, a major low lying areas has collected the highest number, 321 bodies. The morgues there have already been filled with the bodies of the victims swept downstream, which has prompted authorities to set up temporary facilities.

Authorities are managing the bodies under the Unidentified and Unclaimed Bodies Management Guidelines, 2021, under which a committee headed by the district police chief is responsible for managing the remains.

With morgues running out of space, the government has engaged in managing unidentified bodies by amending the Unidentified and Unclaimed Body Management Guidelines, 2021.

A cabinet meeting amended the guidelines for the purposes of Section 22(a) of the Nepal Police Act, 1955. The government has primarily amended Section 14 of the guidelines, adding autopsies for persons who died due to disaster. This includes a provision that if a body or any organ or part of a body of a person deceased due to a disaster is found, and it is confirmed through an inquest report and preliminary physical examination that the death was caused by a disaster, only tests necessary for person identification may be conducted during the autopsy.

In Sub-section (1), a provision has been added requiring the collection and retention of necessary samples for testing, including DNA, to identify persons prior to managing unidentified or unclaimed bodies, body organs, or parts.

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Similarly, in Sub-section (2), a provision has been added allowing unidentified or unclaimed bodies, body organs, or parts to be placed safely underground with identifying markers attached during management.

In Sub-section (3), a provision has been added stating that if a rightful heir of the stored body, organ, or part is identified and wishes to take custody, the body, organ, or part must be handed over to them.

Under the previous guidelines, there were provisions for the storage and protection of unidentified and unclaimed bodies. According to those, unidentified and unclaimed bodies were to be secured for a specified period in storage rooms at nearby federal, provincial, and local hospitals, storage rooms in community hospitals, government and community-run mortuaries, places designated by local levels, or other suitable locations.

Following this, the government made several amendments to the guidelines. Clause (c1) was added after Clause (c) of Section 2 of the main guidelines. It states that ‘body management’ shall mean temporary management carried out without complete last rites. In Clause (c) of the 2021 guidelines, ‘unclaimed body’ was defined as a body whose relatives or rightful heirs could not be traced or which remained unclaimed.

The government amended Section 10 of the guidelines to add a clarification. It specifies that ‘body’ shall also denote any organ or part of the body found.

Likewise, the government amended Section 11. In Clause (b) of Sub-section 4 of Section 11, the words ‘managed bodies or’ were added after the words ‘unable to be handed over’.

Amending Clause (c) of the same section, the government replaced the words ‘cremation/burial’ with the words ‘body management or cremation/burial’.

Section 13(1)(e) was amended, replacing ‘unclaimed bodies’ with ‘body management of unclaimed bodies or’, and Section 13(1)(f) was amended to replace ‘cremation/burial’ with the words ‘body management or cremation/burial’.

Section 14 was amended to add Clause (d1) after Clause (d), establishing a provision that bodies of persons deceased due to disaster shall be managed at places designated by the District Disaster Management Committee. Clause (d) previously mentioned places designated by local levels on the recommendation of the committee for temporary body preservation.

(Source: ANI)

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