Nepal’s finance minister, Swarnim Wagle, has said he fears the death toll from the country’s devastating flash floods could approach 10,000. He said the number of deaths in these floods could reach the level of those killed in the devastating earthquake of 2015.
Speaking at a seminar in New Delhi, Wagle said that although the floods’ impact was geographically confined, the scale of loss of life had been as severe as in the 2015 earthquake. The Indian outlet the Indian Express reported the information.
The magnitude 7.8 earthquake of 2015 killed about 9,000 people and injured 21,000 across Nepal, China, India and Bangladesh.
The Indian news agency PTI, citing Nepal police, reported that 1,450 deaths in the floods had been confirmed up to Sunday (September 21). About 6,000 people are still missing.
Nepal’s National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority said DNA samples had been collected from 1,206 recovered bodies. Samples have also been taken from 1,889 relatives of the missing. So far, however, it has been possible to identify and hand over only 105 bodies to families.
Thermal drones and helicopters are being used in the search for the missing. Specialists have also been deployed to rescue workers trapped in hydropower project tunnels in remote hill areas. Several people have already been rescued alive from some of the tunnels.
The authorities said the greatest obstacles in the search for the missing are the difficult hill terrain, limited airspace and the vast quantity of debris.
Relatives of foreign nationals have meanwhile complained that the regular updates on the rescue operation have become less frequent recently.