Archive · 2 Sep 2026
Nepal Families Seek Missing Loved Ones After Deadly Flash Floods
Severe flash floods struck Nepal on August 26 and killed more than 1,200 people.
Thousands of others are still missing.
Families are waiting outside a Kathmandu hospital and looking at photographs to find their relatives.
Many bodies cannot yet be identified because they are badly damaged.
Some bodies are being buried temporarily with numbers and signs so they can be found later.
DNA samples may help match the bodies to families.
In some places, families are holding symbolic funerals using straw figures for people who are still missing.
Nepal’s foreign minister says climate change and melting glaciers contributed to the disaster.
Nepal plans to ask wealthier countries for help because it says they have contributed much more to global warming.
More than 1,200 people have died and over 4,000 remain missing after Nepal’s August 26 flash floods.
At least 161 unidentified bodies remained at Tribhuvan Hospital in Kathmandu as of September 2.
Families outside the hospital display photographs while doctors struggle to collect fingerprints and other identifying marks.
Authorities are temporarily burying bodies with labels and DNA samples so they can later be exhumed and identified.
Nepal says it will seek international climate compensation, arguing that major emitters bear moral responsibility for the disaster.
- Who
- Families of missing people, doctors, Nepali authorities, and Nepal’s Foreign Minister Shisir Khanal.
- What
- Families are searching for and identifying victims after flash floods, while Nepal prepares a climate-compensation appeal.
- When
- The floods occurred on August 26; the hospital situation described was current as of September 2.
- Where
- Tribhuvan Hospital in Kathmandu and affected districts including Chitwan and Nuwakot, Nepal.
- Why
- Bodies need identification and safe temporary burial, while Nepal attributes the disaster partly to climate change and seeks international assistance.
- Reported deaths
- More than 1,200 people
- People missing
- Over 4,000
- Unidentified bodies
- At least 161 at Tribhuvan Hospital as of September 2
- Flood date
- August 26
- Temporary burial depth
- 1.5 metres in Chitwan
- Burial spacing
- A 40-centimetre gap between bodies
- Identification methods
- DNA samples, photographs, fingerprints, identification marks, and numbered burial sites
- Nepal’s diplomatic position
- Post-disaster assistance should be treated as a climate-related moral liability of major emitting nations