Nepal ends flood search, confirms 1,455 dead, 5,285 still missing

Nepal has formally ended search and rescue operations for the August 26 Bhotekoshi-Trishuli floods, 40 days after the disaster struck near the border with China's Tibet region. The confirmed death toll stands at 1,455. Another 5,285 people remain missing, and 13,795 were rescued, the Prime Minister's Secretariat said Monday, October 5, Reuters and the Kathmandu Post reported.

For families still waiting at home and abroad, this does not mean their missing relative has been found or ruled out. It means the active hunt for bodies is over. The National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority, or NDRRMA, will no longer actively search for remains, its chief Dharam Raj Uprety told Reuters. Remains, property or valuables found during rebuilding will still be recovered, he said, and emergency rescues will resume if needed.

Phanindra Paudel, chief of the National Emergency Operation Centre, told Reuters the country is "moving from the search and rescue phase to the search and rehabilitation phase." Officials are weighing how to legally declare the missing dead, he said, so families can settle insurance claims, bank accounts and other paperwork that needs a death certificate. "We are initiating due processes to complete required legal formalities," Paudel said.

The decision came from a meeting of the National Council for Disaster Risk Reduction and Management, chaired by Prime Minister Balendra Shah at the Office of the Prime Minister on Monday, the Kathmandu Post reported. It followed recommendations from district security committees, district disaster management committees and the NDRRMA executive committee, based on field inspections that found hopes of finding survivors had faded, the secretariat said. Search continues only in emergencies, the Post reported, so this is a scaling back, not a total stop.

The same meeting recommended a Rs 559.17 billion budget, about $3.62 billion by IANS's conversion, to the Finance Ministry for 504 reconstruction projects submitted by government agencies, the Kathmandu Post and Republica reported. That sum is a recommendation, not an approved or released budget. It would be paid out under the 2020 fiscal procedures law once approved, the Post reported. Shah said reconstruction would run through the same federal, provincial and local coordination used during the flood response, according to IANS.

What the coverage missed

Monday's closure reports from Reuters, the Kathmandu Post, Republica and IANS repeat the same two numbers. None of them mention that the official missing count did not fall in a straight line toward 5,285. Nepal's disaster authority reported nearly 4,900 missing on September 7, the International Organization for Migration said. Nepal Police, keeping its own count, put the figure at 4,077 on September 9, according to Mappr.co, a site that tracks official disaster data. NDRRMA's own count jumped to 6,150 on September 16, up from 5,179 a day earlier, after NDRRMA spokeswoman Shanti Mahat said figures were revised following checks from district offices, Mappr.co reported. By September 24 the Kathmandu Post put the tally at 1,436 dead and 5,644 missing. None of those reports explains why the number moved this way before landing at 5,285.

The coverage also drops hundreds of foreign nationals who were, weeks ago, central to this story. Nepal had counted 636 foreign nationals among the missing, including 54 Ukrainians, while China reported 261 foreign nationals missing on its side of the border, ABC News reported in late September. Families of missing foreigners told the Kathmandu Post on September 16 they wanted cross border cooperation with China and clearer information on the search. None of Monday's closure reports says what happens to those cases, or that cooperation, now that domestic search has formally ended.

What we still do not know

• How many of the 5,285 still missing are foreign nationals, by country, and whether search cooperation with Chinese authorities continues. NDRRMA and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs could answer this.
• Why the missing count rose to 6,150 in mid September before falling to 5,285 at closure. NDRRMA's data management unit, which revised the figures after the September 16 spike, could explain it.
• When the Finance Ministry will approve the Rs 559.17 billion recommendation, and when money reaches flood hit districts. The Finance Ministry could answer this.