Police drone in Nepal spotted a body in buried building, rescuers find 23 more

TRISHULI BAZAAR (NEPAL): A police drone scanning flood-buried buildings in Betrawati village in Nuwakot district near the Rasuwa border spotted what appeared to be a single body inside a three-storey structure surrounded by deep, marsh-like silt. Rescuers improvised a path through the mud, entered the building and found 23 more bodies - 12 women, 11 men and a young girl. Police had not established who they were or why so many people had ended up inside the same building.Getting inside took multiple attempts. Floodwater had deposited such deep sludge and liquid concrete around the building that rescuers could not approach it on foot. After the drone reconnaissance, police collected corrugated metal sheets, pieces of timber and ropes from nearby wreckage and laid them across the mud to create a makeshift route. Two police teams then reached the building. Some bodies lay half-buried in hardened silt and had to be chiselled out with spades and shovels.The building belonged to Bachuram Awasthi, though it remained unclear if he was among the dead, and housed the Uttargaya Mini Mart - a convenience store - on its ground floor, police said. Rescuers searched the ground floor and the two floors above it, though parts of the three-storey premises remained inaccessible. Nuwakot SP Bipin Regmi told TOI that none of the bodies had been identified. "We found 24 bodies from the sections we could search. There are still areas that need to be checked," he said.Most of the bodies were found on the ground floor, where the mini mart operated, while others were on the upper floors. That left investigators with a question they could not yet answer: what had brought so many people together in one building when the flood struck?Regmi said, "Some could have been shoppers, workers or others already inside, while people may also have rushed into the large building for safety. Another possibility is that the force of the flood carried some victims into it. It is too early to establish which, if any, of those explanations are correct."Catch the latest World News and Live updates. Download the TOI app.