Nepal floods: Missing persons count spikes to 4,247 as rescue ops enter Day 6

Calling Nepal a close friend and a “sukh dukh ke saathi”, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Monday assured Kathmandu of India’s continued support as it deals with the devastation caused by the flash floods.

Singh said India stands with the “Nepali brothers and sisters” and will support the country in its ongoing search, rescue and rehabilitation efforts.

Eleven unidentified bodies believed to have drifted into Uttar Pradesh's Kushinagar from Nepal through the Narayani river following the recent flood disaster have been preserved at AIIMS Gorakhpur, officials said.

All the bodies have been kept at the Anatomy Department, while authorities await directions from the state government regarding identification and further procedures.

To facilitate identification, AIIMS is preparing detailed records of each body, documenting physical features, condition of the remains, hair length, clothing and other distinguishing characteristics.

Several bodies were recovered without clothes, making identification more challenging.

The institute is also seeking guidance on the nature of forensic examinations required and the process to be followed thereafter. Given the cross-border nature of the tragedy, further action will be taken in accordance with directions from the state government and the Ministry of External Affairs, officials said

As many as 262 people from Maharashtra remain stranded in flood-hit regions of Nepal and China as of Monday morning, while 144 others have been safely evacuated to India, according to an official state government report.

The Maharashtra Disaster Management Department confirmed that efforts are underway with the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) to trace 64 individuals still unreachable.

The authorities were yet to establish direct contact with 60 citizens who had travelled through Richa Tours Pvt Ltd, while information about four others had been received through links but contact with them could not yet be made, it said.

According to the report, 144 citizens had reached India so far, and of these, 105 reached Nagpur on August 28, while 39 arrived in Mumbai on Saturday and Sunday.

At least 69 citizens had crossed the China-Nepal border through the Kodari immigration centre and entered Nepal, and were expected to reach Mumbai by August 31, it said.

The Madras Bar Association on Monday apprised Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Justice of India, Justice Surya Kant that former judge of the Madras High Court, Justice V Sivagnanam, has gone missing in Nepal and sought urgent action to search and rescue him.

Requesting their urgent intervention, the Bar Association said Justice Sivagnanam has reportedly been missing and untraceable in Nepal since August 26, following the catastrophic floods.

"He was travelling in Nepal as part of a group of Tamil pilgrims when the disaster struck," the office-bearers of Madras Bar Association, one of the nation's oldest bar associations, said.

Justice Sivagnanam rendered about 34 years of service in the judiciary, and effective July 2025, he was designated as senior advocate by the Supreme Court.

Workers shovelled thick mud from a flood-ravaged power station in central Nepal, trying to revive a key node that supplies electricity to more than 20,000 people. But as they cleared debris from equipment buried by last week's catastrophic floods, there was hope the plant would not simply be rebuilt in the same place, beside the river that destroyed it.

In Nepal, up to 900 workers are unaccounted for from a dozen hydropower projects, according to the Independent Power Producers' Association, Nepal, with hundreds believed trapped in tunnels.

The loss of hydropower infrastructure is estimated to have taken 700 megawatts offline -- about 10 per cent of the country's power capacity. Once the immediate aftermath of the disaster is dealt with, the question of how to restore power, roads, bridges, schools and health facilities quickly without rebuilding the same vulnerabilities should be on top of Nepalese authorities' minds, disaster experts said.

“Authorities have to take a hard look in the mirror now and ask how they will be rebuilding in these places. They will also have to take a close look at other projects in Nepal that have not been built yet, whether they'll be approved after this event,” said Jakob Steiner, a geoscientist at the University of Graz in Austria, who is currently based in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Hydropower projects that were operating or under construction were fully or partly destroyed across Rasuwa, Nuwakot and Dhading, among the worst-hit districts.

Security personnel risking their lives to rescue survivors and recover bodies after the devastating flash floods in Nepal are facing major challenges due to shortages of specialised rescue equipment, body bags, ropes and helicopters, officials said.

Personnel from the Nepal Army, Nepal Police and Armed Police Force have been deployed in large numbers in the affected areas, but officials said the lack of state-of-the-art equipment was making operations in dangerous terrain particularly difficult, news portal ekantipur.com reported on Monday.

Among the equipment in short supply are thermal cameras, devices capable of detecting signs of life through sound, specialised tools for cutting through obstacles, body bags, ropes and advanced helicopters, the report said, quoting officials.

Security personnel have also repeatedly sought helicopters to reach people trapped or stranded in difficult-to-access areas.

A police inspector said several people had contacted Police Control 100 seeking assistance, but personnel were sometimes unable to reach them because of operational difficulties.

The Nepal Police, considered the frontline agency in responding to emergencies, has repeatedly sought the purchase of helicopters, officials said.

Police personnel deployed in Bidur also reported shortages of equipment used to cut trees and other objects during rescue operations.

China provided USD 2.2 million in financial assistance to Nepal for victims of the devastating flash flood, with President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Li Qiang expressing condolences over the loss of lives and property, the government said.

Chinese Ambassador to Nepal Zhang Maoming handed over a cheque for NPR 350 million, equivalent to USD 2 million, to Finance Minister Swarnim Wagle on Sunday (August 30) as assistance from the Chinese government, the Finance Ministry said.

The Chinese envoy also handed over USD 200,000 in assistance from the Chinese Red Cross to the Nepal government, it said. "Nepal is not alone in this disaster; China is always with Nepal," Zhang conveyed to Wagle on behalf of Xi and Li.

The Chinese leaders expressed deep sorrow over the loss of lives in the disaster and conveyed their condolences to the victims' families, the ministry said.

Spiritual leader Sadhguru Jagadish (Jaggi) Vasudev has called for the creation of a five-nation Himalayan Board comprising India, China, Pakistan, Nepal and Bhutan to strengthen cooperation in response to disasters affecting the fragile region.

He made these remarks on Sunday (August 30) while addressing an event “In Solidarity With Nepal” in Kathmandu. He also pledged Rs 1 crore towards Nepal’s Prime Minister Disaster Relief Fund, an official statement by the Isha Foundation said.

A group of 77 pilgrims from the Isha Foundation remain missing after a massive flash flood struck areas near the China-Nepal border, killing hundreds and leaving thousands missing.

Calling for the countries to look beyond political boundaries when dealing with a mountain system shared by all, Sadhguru said, "The mountains don't know your political affiliation. The mountains don't know what nonsense or language you speak." He proposed the creation of a five-nation Himalayan Board comprising India, China, Pakistan, Nepal and Bhutan to strengthen cooperation in response to disasters affecting the fragile region, the statement said.

"Himalayas are the most fantastic and majestic feature on the planet. At the same time, they are very fragile," Sadhguru asserted.

Four unidentified bodies recovered from the Narayani-Gandak river in Uttar Pradesh's Maharajganj district were handed over to the Nepal administration after post-mortem examinations, officials said on Monday (August 31).

The bodies of three women and a man were recovered on August 27 from the river and had been kept at the district hospital mortuary as their identities could not be established.

DNA samples were collected from all four bodies during the post-mortem examination to facilitate their identification, officials said.

Nichlaul Tehsildar Amit Singh, who led the operation, said, "the bodies were transported in two ambulances and handed over to the Nawalparasi administration at the Maheshpur border near Thuthibari late Sunday night." Additional District Magistrate Prashant Kumar said, "all necessary legal and administrative formalities were completed before the bodies were handed over to Nepal Police." The DNA data will also be shared with the Nepal administration according to procedure to help match the samples with those of families searching for missing persons, officials said.

Nepal is battling a deluge of misinformation, alongside rescue and relief operations, as fake and AI-generated visuals inundated social media following the devastating flash floods, prompting the government to order 72 users to remove inappropriate content over the past few days.

The Nepal Press Council, the country's media regulatory body, has opened a dedicated portal, titled "Special Complaints on the Bhotekoshi Incident", through which the public can report misinformation and graphic material related to the disaster, The Kathmandu Post reported on Monday (August 31).

The move comes as social media platforms have been inundated with dramatic videos and images purportedly showing the destruction caused by the flash floods in the Himalayan nation.

While some of the footage is genuine, fact-checkers have found that several widely circulated videos and images are from disasters in other countries, recycled from earlier events or generated or manipulated using artificial intelligence, the report said.

The rapid spread of misleading content has complicated an already chaotic information environment at a time when families are desperately searching for missing relatives and authorities are trying to establish the full extent of the disaster.