Raj Kumar Tamang of Bidur, Nuwakot, had fed his five-year-old son Prince and sent him to school in his uniform when he learned that the Trishuli river had flooded.

Raj Kumar was safe, but Prince never returned home.

He searched desperately for his son. Then, while scrolling through photographs of recovered bodies published on the Nepal Police website, he spotted a child wearing a school tie.

The body had been taken to Pokhara Academy of Health Sciences. Raj Kumar travelled to Pokhara on Saturday and identified his son by his school tie, a necklace and an earring. The tie bore the name of Uttargaya Secondary School in Bidur, where Prince was an LKG student.

His body had been recovered on the banks of the Narayani river in Nawalparasi on Thursday, far downstream from the flood zone. Rajkumar collected his son's body and returned to Bidur later on Saturday.

For Satya Krishna Prajapati of Bhaktapur, it was a tattoo that helped identify his elder brother, Satya Sundar Prajapati. He recognised the body from a tattoo on his brother's shoulder and took the remains back to Kathmandu on Friday.

Satya Sundar had been working as a site engineer at the under-construction Upper Trishuli-1 hydropower project in Rasuwa for the past year and a half.

Relatives of 45-year-old Narayan Thapa, a schoolteacher from Arghakhanchi who had been teaching at a community school in Betrawati, arrived in Pokhara on Friday after suspecting that a body recovered in Nawalparasi East was his.

A photograph released by Devchuli Police and a silver pendant worn around the man’s neck helped relatives identify the body. Thapa’s wife and other family members formally identified the body on Saturday and took it away.

Following the Bhotekoshi flood, 102 bodies recovered from Gorkha, Tanahun, Dhading and Nawalparasi East were brought to Pokhara. By Saturday, relatives had identified and claimed 10 of them.

More than 1,000 relatives of people missing in the Rasuwa flood arrived at Pokhara Academy of Health Sciences on Saturday alone to search for their loved ones, according to Deepak Rijal, acting spokesperson for Kaski Police.

Police have set up a help desk at the hospital.

Photographs and identifying details of the bodies are displayed in a hall at the academy, allowing relatives to search for missing family members.

“Where faces are no longer recognisable, relatives are identifying bodies through school ties, tattoos, necklaces and earrings,” Police Inspector Rijal said. “More relatives are continuing to arrive.”

The help desk provides assistance including free help with filing reports, free ambulances for transporting bodies and free food and accommodation for relatives searching for missing family members.

With support from the Hotel Association, police accommodated 47 people in Lakeside hotels on Friday and another 19 on Saturday, Rijal said.

Of the 102 bodies brought to Pokhara, 46 had undergone post-mortem examinations by Saturday.

Five forensic specialists, including three from Pokhara Academy of Health Sciences and one each from Manipal College of Medical Sciences and Gandaki Medical College, have been deployed for the examinations. They have been working from 9am to 6pm.

Two specialists from Nepal Police's Central Forensic Science Laboratory arrived in Pokhara on Friday to collect DNA samples and analyse fingerprints.

Bodies to remain in Pokhara for several more days

The mortuary at Pokhara Academy of Health Sciences has 72 refrigerated compartments, but it is currently holding more bodies than its official capacity.

Authorities have managed the shortage by arranging the bodies carefully, including smaller bodies and dismembered remains.

A container was placed inside a cold room at the academy on Saturday, and authorities are preparing to transfer up to 25 bodies into it under controlled temperatures.

According to the academy's information officer Sushil Aryal, the facility has one of Nepal's largest and most modern mortuaries outside Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital in Maharajgunj. Bodies can be preserved at temperatures between 2 and 6 degrees Celsius for around 10 days to two weeks.

The process of handing over identified bodies to relatives is continuing.

For bodies that remain unidentified, authorities must follow the government's 2021 directive on the management of unidentified and unclaimed bodies. Under the rules, a body management committee led by the district police chief is responsible for the process.

Photographs, fingerprints and DNA samples are collected and preserved before burial.

If a body remains unidentified for a prolonged period, it must be buried at a site designated by the local government. The burial site must be chosen so that no structure is built there for at least 12 years.

“We bury the bodies with tag numbers and geo-location records,” Rijal said. “If relatives come forward within 12 years, the remains can be exhumed and identified through DNA analysis.”

Kaski Chief District Officer Kuman Singh Gurung said Pokhara could continue storing the bodies for several more days.

“Relatives are arriving in Pokhara after checking bodies recovered in Chitwan and Nawalparasi,” he said. “The situation here is not like Chitwan, where an improvised mortuary led to a foul smell. We have refrigerated facilities here, so there will be no immediate problem.”

Authorities will wait for several more days before deciding whether to bury unidentified bodies, he said. The decision will be taken jointly by the District Security Committee and the body management committee.