'Giant morgue': Nepal flood victims overwhelm downstream city

Health workers carry the body of a deceased for cremation in the aftermath of flash floods, outside a mortuary in Nepal's Chitwan district, Monday. AFP-Yonhap

By Hankookilbo

• Published Sep 1, 2026 3:10 PM KST

Grieving families flock to Bharatpur as city processes hundreds of bodies swept away by devastating floods

CHITWAN, Nepal — The smell grew stronger with every step, stinging the nose and causing headaches.

Vendors selling masks outside the hospital had warned us. "One mask won't be enough," they said. When the Hankook Ilbo visited Bharatpur in the Chitwan district on Monday, the sixth day of the massive floods, the entire city reeked of death, functioning as a giant morgue.

Bharatpur sits approximately 200 kilometers southwest of the disaster zone near the Tibetan border, a six-hour drive from the capital, Kathmandu. Bodies swept downstream are piling up here because the river current slows in the plains. Nepal's National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority said 259 of the 675 bodies recovered nationwide as of Saturday turned up in Chitwan district.

Bodies floating in the river or washing ashore are moved to Bharatpur Hospital. Inside the autopsy room, a grim scene unfolded as scattered bodies lay across the floor. On a work table, employees in full hazmat suits sprayed water to clean a severed, severely swollen leg. When they finished, they pulled another body from the freezer — a single leg, still wearing its shoe.

As bodies continued to arrive, the hospital's mortuary was already at full capacity. Authorities set up temporary mortuaries at a nearby trade center and a prison, even storing bodies in ice-filled bags, but it was not enough. The region's hot and humid subtropical climate accelerates decomposition, prompting authorities to order emergency burials due to sanitation concerns.

Unidentified bodies are assigned a unique code and buried after DNA samples are collected. A white band carrying that code is tied around each ankle, a temporary measure to distinguish between the remains.

"So far we have buried 203 bodies, and 80 remain at the hospital," hospital administrator Aje Shubidi said. "Only 12 have been claimed by families."

Urvi Sake, a doctor at Bharatpur Hospital, has handled about 200 bodies over six days, collecting DNA samples from 50 to 60 people a day.

"Not one body arrives completely clean. Even when there is only an arm or a leg, there are numerous signs of striking rocks," she said. "I cannot even imagine how painful and how hard it must have been when the river swept them away."

Hearing that many bodies were found in Bharatpur, families of the missing flocked to the city. At a missing-persons center set up in the trade center, about 70 people sat in silence, staring intently at a monitor on the wall. Photographs of recovered bodies flashed on the screen every 10 seconds, but no photograph repeated for over 20 minutes, reflecting the massive number of unclaimed dead.

"If someone looks at a body and believes it is their family, we let them confirm it in person," a police official said.

Families wait for a fragment of bone, a piece of flesh — anything — but the remains actually handed back to relatives are few. Birjman Bratogi, 29, has been at the center for four days.

"I heard my uncle went missing, and I drove two full days from Rolpa," he said. "There has not been a body yet that looks like my uncle."

Beside the trade center, soldiers and police sat at a desk, recording information on missing people to cross-reference with discovered bodies. Porkas Jodri, 32, described his younger brother's physical appearance to the police.

"When it came to actually describing my brother, I realized I did not know much, and I could not recall any feature that would identify him. It broke my heart," he said, his voice breaking. "I wish I had taken more photographs."

Bodies released from the mortuary are buried in a jungle that is a 20-minute drive from the hospital. About 500 meters in from the entrance, roughly 20 mounds appeared through the trees, the freshly turned earth unmistakable. Right next to them, a 2-meter-deep trench stretched for about 1 kilometer, dug as future graves.

"You must not take photographs inside," the soldiers said.

Another 500 meters down, marker boards were planted in the ground like flower pots. A military official controlling the site said they mark where each body is buried. A man walked past pulling a cart. He was on his way back, he said, after finding a body buried in the ground.

"I thought we would not be able to hold a cremation, but we barely found him," he said. He exhaled heavily and trudged away.

Fewer bodies are coming out of the river now, but debris continues to wash ashore. Wood, plastic bottles, slippers, boots and gas cylinders piled up along the riverbank, creating a hill of garbage. Residents carried the wood away for firewood. In a place where the stench of death had not yet left, someone was building a fire warm enough to get through the day.

This article from the Hankook Ilbo, the sister publication of The Korea Times, is translated by a generative AI system and edited by The Korea Times.