Families of people who went missing in the Bhotekoshi floods have begun performing the funeral rites of their loved ones using effigies made of kusha grass, as they did not receive any clues of their whereabouts even after eight days of the disaster.

Most flood victims have been left without a place to observe the mourning rituals, as the floodwaters not only swept away family members but also their houses.

Those who lost everything in the floods and came to the capital city seeking shelter have also been unable to find space at public facilities for the rituals.

Nirajan Poudel of Nuwakot reached the Kiriyaputri Bhawan at Rudramati Mahadev Temple in Tarakeshwar-5 after losing family members in the devastating floods. “After we could not find any space to stay during the mourning period, we came here,” he said. “We managed to get a room here.”

Poudel, a resident of Bidur Municipality-7, lost his father, mother, uncle, aunt and sister (his uncle’s daughter) in the devastating August 26 disaster. On Wednesday, he and his cousin performed the funeral rites of all five using effigies made of kusha, the grass holy for Hindus with the scientific name Desmostachya bipinnata, and began the mourning rituals.

The Rudramati Mahadev Temple and Kiriyaputri Bhawan are still under construction. However, after flood victims requested a place to observe mourning rituals for relatives lost in the Bhotekoshi floods, the temple management committee decided to open the facility in whatever condition it was, said Raj Kumar Phuyal, treasurer of the temple management committee.

“The entire country is currently in mourning. To help the relatives of the victims, we opened this Kiriyaputri Bhawan after the floods,” he said. “As construction isn’t over yet, mourners may face some difficulties.”

There are currently eight groups staying at the Kiriyaputri Bhawan, and each group has lost three to five members of the family in the Rasuwa flood.

“There is no space to accommodate even one more mourner family,” said Sudarshan Chapagain, a social activist. “So many people have come asking for a place to observe the mourning ritual but we have not been able to accommodate them all.”

He said construction of the Kiriyaputri Bhawan was still underway and that a lack of funds had delayed its completion for years. The Tarakeshwar Municipality had provided only Rs1 million for its construction while local residents also collected donations to build the three-storey building.

Like in Rudramati Mahadev Temple and Kiriyaputri Bhawan, all eight rooms at the nearby Gupteshwar Mahadev Temple’s Kiriyaputri Bhawan are occupied by families who lost relatives in the Bhotekoshi floods. After more and more people began coming to request a place to observe the rituals, the building management committee put up tents and created six additional rooms.

“Now we do not have any room available until the current groups complete their mourning,” said Rishi Prasad Nepal, a member of the Gupteshwar Temple Kiriyaputri Bhawan management committee. “We keep receiving phone calls from flood victims for a place to mourn but we simply do not have one to offer.”

The committee has decided to charge only Rs1,000 for each family for using its room to mourn and complete rituals.

“Mourners' families themselves have to bring gas, as we are unable to manage gas for them,” said Nepal. “LP gas is no longer available for purchase.”

Rajan Raila of Bidur Municipality-7, who lost his mother, younger brother and sister-in-law in the floods, performed the funeral rites of the deceased using kusha effigies at Pashupati Aryaghat on Wednesday and then came to Gupteshwar Temple to observe the mourning rituals. He said he and his brothers, who are observing the rituals together, were given only one room.

“We got only one room for the mourning rituals of three deceased family members,” he said. “Even that room has not yet become available. We will get it only after those whose 13th-day ritual is completed today leave. Until then, we have to wait outside.”

Relatives of victims said they had begun performing the rituals using kusha effigies because there was little possibility of finding their missing family members, and even if bodies were recovered, identifying them had become difficult. They also complain that bodies were being buried rapidly in mass graves, leaving families with no option but to perform symbolic funerals.

Victims said around 100 people were missing in Sole of Bidur Municipality-7 alone in the floods.

“There could be many more, as we do not know how many people who were staying indoors, walking along the roads or working at construction sites were swept away,” said Ram Chandra Dhakal, a flood victim displaced from Bidur-7, Sole.

Dhakal and his brother Uttam are also observing the mourning ritual for their mother at the Kiriyaputri Bhawan in Gupteshwar. She was found dead after being caught in the flood. Although the body was cremated in their village, they had to come to Kathmandu, as there was no house in the village where they could observe the mourning rituals, he said.

Victims said all the rooms at the Kiriyaputri Bhawan at a place known as Gumba in Balaju-16 have also been occupied by people who lost relatives in the floods. Even those displaced by the floods who came to Kathmandu to stay with relatives or in rented rooms have struggled to observe mourning rituals, as it is not possible to conduct such rituals in their relatives’ homes or their own rented rooms.

The lack of space at public kiriyaputri buildings has compounded their difficulties in observing the mourning rituals.

More than 1,200 bodies of people who died in the August 26 floods have been recovered while thousands are still missing. Pilgrims, tourists, engineers and others are among those who disappeared in the floods.

The floods swept away more than 7,000 houses, while many of the houses that are still standing have become uninhabitable. Dozens of concrete and suspension bridges and roads have been washed away. Dozens of settlements along the Trishuli riverbanks have been completely destroyed in the floods.