Kathmandu: Hoping to identify victims, rescuers pulled out 11 bodies from a river in Nepal, where a landslide buried two packed buses on Monday, said officials. The rescue operations have continued as people looked for the missing buses and other around 50 individuals who were on it.
As per the details shared by the government administrator Khima Nanda Bhusal, the people identified recognizably were seven, out of which 3 were Indians and 4 were Nepali citizens. Four other bodies were also pulled out from the river, and the identity of these individuals has not been established, thus heightening the possibility that these additional individuals might have been part of the buses’ passengers.
Search Operations
“We are committed to search these people till needed and we don’t have any plans of leaving or backing down We will continue the search and back it up until all of them are traced,” Bhusal said. These buses were plying on a strategic highway that connects the Nepalese capital city with the southern districts when swept away at Simaltal, 120km west of Kathmandu, Nepal. This was during the rainy season and the intensity of the rains makes the rivers big and has also hampered the rescue missions.
Three people were dragged out of the buses and are reported to be in a hospital. The search for bodies has been escalated, and already, some 50 kilometers away from where the buses were trapped, a body was retrieved. Other corpses were retrieved a little further down the river and close to the border with India, further affirming the calamity that had transpired and the work that was cut out for the rescue teams.
Challenges in Rainy Season
People who lost their dear ones in the tragedy waited anxiously by the river, hoping to get some information about the results of the search operation where magnets, scuba diving equipment, and special imaging with sonar devices were used. Problems arose from the Nepalese terrain consisting of mountainous territories, which caused increased challenging factors, including hazy, fast-flowing river water and recent rains that kept visibility low. The authorities have also imposed a ban for the travellers to travel in this region during the night time.
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