Bodies Recovered from Bhote Koshi River Sent to Hospitals

Pokhara. Bodies washed away by the flood in the Bhote Koshi River are being collected and sent to hospitals. Bodies found in areas like Nawalpur and Tanahun are being sent to Kaski. So far, 9 bodies have arrived, and 47 more are on their way. According to Kaski administration, the bodies that have arrived have been kept in the morgue of Pokhara Institute of Health Sciences. With the arrival of the bodies, the process of identification has also begun. Chief District Officer Kuman Singh Gurung said that managing such a large number of bodies in Pokhara's hospitals may be difficult. Pokhara currently has a total capacity to store 88 bodies. "We have a capacity to store 88 bodies. If the situation arises where we have to manage more than this, we do not have additional capacity," he said, "For that, we will have to look at neighboring districts closer than Pokhara for body management, and coordination is being done accordingly." He informed that 9 bodies have already been brought from Tanahun. 27 bodies from Nawalpur and 20 from Dhading are on their way. Gurung informed that a plan has been made to manage bodies exceeding capacity in hospitals of neighboring districts like Tanahun, Lamjung, Gorkha, Syangja, Baglung, and Parbat. He stated that coordination with neighboring districts was necessary because technically, it is difficult to maintain the required temperature by installing additional AC and other equipment in the same hall to store many bodies. To keep the bodies safe, 117 body bags have been sent from Pokhara to Madhya Bindu Hospital and 50 to Nawalpur Red Cross, and the administration has 117 more bags in stock. "Technically, there can be a problem with temperature control if many bodies are kept in the same hall with added AC. Therefore, preparations are being made to manage them in hospitals of other districts," Gurung said. Tanahun has the capacity to manage 9 bodies, Lamjung 4, and Gorkha 2. Kaski's Police Chief SP Naveen Karki informed that work is also being done on identification as soon as the bodies start arriving. The body management committee, headed by him, is carrying out the management work. "Our first priority is to identify the bodies. Initially, post-mortems will be done, we will take fingerprints, and DNA will also be extracted during the post-mortem," he says, "For bodies that are recognizable, we will take pictures and publish them on various portals for identification and call the relatives." Bodies that cannot be identified for a long time will be cremated safely in designated places in coordination with Pokhara Metropolitan City or the concerned local level. Karki stated that each body will be tagged for identification during body management. "Bodies that are not identified for a long time will be safely buried with an identification number (tag)," he added, "The directive states that if any relatives come to identify them based on photos or DNA matching in the future, the bodies can be located and handed over to the relatives based on that tag number."