A month after the devastating floods in the Bhotekoshi river, around 5,285 people are still missing.

In the days after the disaster, families and relatives of those missing plastered the walls of Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital in Maharajgunj and the National Trauma Centre with photographs and notices, hoping they would help in the search and identification effort.

The missing have not been found. The photographs are still there.

Exposed to sun and rain, some have begun to peel away from the walls, fade and tear. After exhausting various efforts to trace their loved ones, some families have carried out last rites using symbolic bodies made from kusha grass.

According to the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority, the bodies of 1,453 people caught in the floods have been recovered. Some have yet to be identified.

So far, DNA samples have been collected from 2,060 people to help identify the missing.

The photographs remain on the hospital walls, keeping the missing present in the places where their families still hope to find them.