Funerals All Day... Shortage of Body Storage Facilities

[Anchor]

The aftermath of the massive floods has even swallowed Nepal's capital, Kathmandu. While the bodies of victims continue to flood in, a severe shortage of mortuary facilities is leaving grieving families in deep anguish. Families of the missing continue their search, desperately hoping to at least recover the bodies of their loved ones.

Reporter Kwon Min-kyu brings us this report from Kathmandu.

[Reporter]

Teaching Hospital, located in northern Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal.

The exterior walls of the building are densely covered with missing persons posters and notes detailing personal information.

On the fourth day since the massive floods struck, hundreds of people crowd the hospital every day to search for missing loved ones.

A woman breaks down in tears while putting up a poster to find her beloved family member.

A nephew is also burning with anxiety as he searches for his uncle, who worked as a driver at a hydroelectric power plant construction site built by a South Korean company.

[Family of Missing Person: It has been several days since we lost contact with my uncle. He worked as a driver at the (Doosan) hydroelectric power plant site.]

In front of the morgue building behind the hospital where bodies are kept, photographs for identification are also plastered everywhere.

Due to the massive scale of the disaster, there is a severe shortage of even temporary freezers to store bodies.

It is known that the entirety of Nepal has a capacity of only up to about 350 bodies in cold storage, which is merely half the number of deaths confirmed so far.

Families linger in front of the iron doors of the morgue, hoping to at least find the bodies of their loved ones.

[Pratista Tamang / Family of Missing Person: I miss them so much. There is so much I want to say when I see them...]

At a nearby crematorium, funerals for identified victims continue throughout the day.

In Nepal, where the majority of the population is Hindu, victims' souls are honored by cremating bodies using firewood.

[Gunjaching Bosnit / Local Resident: In our neighborhood alone, 12 people lost their lives. We are waiting here because we heard the bodies are being examined at the hospital and brought here for cremation.]

While identification of the missing and treatment of the injured are underway, it is expected to take much longer for the scars of the disaster to heal.

(Camera Reporter: Seol Chi-hwan, Kang Si-woo | Video Editor: Chae Chul-ho)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.