KATHMANDU: As officials continued rescue operations in search of the last missing person on Wednesday, they said that there was no chance of finding any survivors of the country’s deadliest plane crash in 30 years. Divers, drones, and rescuers were engaged to look out for the last missing passenger of the Yeti Airlines that crashed on Sunday morning in Pokhara.
Two days after the fatal crash, a woman’s body was found deep down in the Seti River gorge on Tuesday. With this, the bodies of 71 people who died in the crash have been retrieved.
“There is no possibility of finding any survivor. We have collected 71 bodies so far. The search for the last one will continue,” Tek Bahadur KC, a top district official in Pokhara, said on Wednesday.
Sixty-eight bodies were found on the day of the crash, while two more were recovered on Monday. The flow of a nearby river was diverted to look for bodies, said Gurudutt Ghimire, another official who is part of search operations.
The process to hand over bodies to the families also began on Tuesday. Hospital workers loaded bodies wrapped in plastic onto army trucks, which then left for the airport, where the bodies were to be airlifted back to the capital Kathmandu.
“Eight bodies have been handed to families. We will hand over another 14 bodies after completing autopsies here in Pokhara. Forty-eight bodies have been sent to Kathmandu for DNA tests and handover to the families,” police official AK Chhetri said.
So far the cause of the crash has not been determined yet. Investigations are underway.