KATHMANDU: Grief-stricken Nepalis entered the traditional Hindu last day of mourning on Monday (Sep 7) for the hundreds who died in the catastrophic flood along the country’s border with China even as the government kept search operations going after four miracle rescues in recent days.
Government offices in the Hindu-majority nation of 30 million people and at missions abroad would fly the national flag at half-mast to mark the 13th day after death, the home ministry said in a statement.
The day is considered the final day of mourning by the faithful, who commemorate it with rituals and food offerings.
A huge wall of mud and rock, triggered by a glacier breaking off, collapsed into a river on the Himalayan border of Nepal and China’s Tibet on Aug 26, washing away towns and villages and burying roads and highways under piles of mud and debris.
At least 1,380 people have been killed by the mudslide and more than 5,500 are missing.
In recent days, search teams in Nepal have rescued four people, including a Chinese national who was pulled from a tunnel on Saturday.
The others were two hydropower workers rescued from another tunnel on Friday and a Nepali woman pulled out from her buried house on Saturday.
Rescue operations in Nepal were focused on hydropower stations in the region, army spokesperson Raja Ram Basnet said, where authorities believe there might still be survivors.
Chinese officials said on Sunday that workers had recovered 12 more bodies as the search continued for hundreds still missing in Tibet.
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