- Formal cremations of grass effigies are being held for missing flood victims at Pashupati Nath temple
- Flash floods in Nepal claimed over 1,200 lives and left more than 4,000 people missing
- Hospitals in Kathmandu hold over 150 unidentified bodies awaiting family identification
A strange sight meets the eye these days at the ghat of Kathmandu's Pashupati Nath temple -- formal cremation of effigies made of grass and straw, representing the bodies of flood victims.
Hundreds of people were lost as the Trishuli and Bhote Kosi rivers came roaring down last week without any warning, powered by an enormous chunk of broken glacier. Many of those who went missing, have not been found.
Now, the families, seeking closure, are holding symbolic funerals for them.
The flash floods have claimed more than 1,200 lives, more than 4,000 people are still missing.
At the hospitals, people are desperately searching for some mark of identification that would help them claim the body of a loved one. More than 150 bodies are awaiting identification in Kathmandu's Tribhuvan hospital.
On the other hand, hundreds of unidentified bodies are piling up.
In Bharatpur, the Narayani river -- downstream from Trishuli and Bhote Kosi, has become the backdrop of heart-rending scenes. Bodies are washing up every day, flowing in from upstream where the flash floods hit. More than 350 bodies have been recovered in Chitwan and drones are being used to spot any flowing downstream or caught on the mud banks.
They are being buried at a nearby forest -- for now. The burial is temporary -- to scale down the possibility of infection. DNA has been collected from them already and they will be handed over to the families once matches emerge - a process that could take weeks.
Till then, some of the families are performing the symbolic last rites of their loved ones, resigning to the possibility of never seeing them alive again.
Along the Trishuli river in Nuwakot -- one of the worst-hit districts -- priests place straw effigies representing the missing and perform Hindu cremation rituals, allowing families to offer a final farewell despite having no bodies to recover.
