Several people reported missing after the devastating earthquake in Nepal might still be buried in the rubble
-Pratima Baskota: CIJ
It’s been over a month since the devastating earthquake of 7.2 magnitude hit central Nepal. But the whereabouts of many people still remain unknown. According to the latest report of Nepal Police 36 people from Kathmandu, 111 from earthquake hit 35 districts and additional 11 people from unknown areas are still missing. Furthermore 80 foreign nationals have also been missing which brings the total number to 290.
Landslides might have buried people in mountainous regions, but police are still investigating what might have caused so many people to go missing from Kathmandu city where the destructions weren’t as severe as high up in the mountains.
“We need major investigation into missing people’s cases,” says Dhiru Basnet, chief at the missing person desk of Nepal Police.
According to Police Headquarters the highest number of missing people are from Rasuwa district with 90 followed by 36 in Kathmandu, 29 from Sindhupalchok, 18 from Gorkha and 7 each from Nuwakot and Dolakha. Among the missing foreigners, 12 each are from France and Germany, 7 are from USA, and 6 each are from Spain and Israel. The highest number of foreign nationals went missing from Langtang which stands at 30. Another three individuals have gone missing from the Everest Base Camp. The police are yet to ascertain where the remaining 37 foreigners went missing from.
“We have contacted the family members of missing foreigners, but it seems even they’ve lost all hope,” says Basundhara Khadka of Nepal Police.
The police are having a tough time, looking for missing people despite repeated requests from the families. Thelu Rai, the head of disaster management section at Nepal Police says, “The damaged houses are too dangerous to enter, since the aftershocks have not stopped. Security forces have been unable to enter such structures.”
Our investigations on the whereabouts of these people missing from the capital city led to several revelations. Based on the information submitted by relatives of missing people to the police we began our investigation. Many people working as street vendors in Kathmandu are Indian migrant workers. So we checked with Ministry of Foreign Affairs to see whether they had received any information on missing foreign nationals. We also went through the details of dead bodies at Kathmandu’s Teaching Hospital and talked to neighbors of those people who are still believed to be buried in rubble.
Our investigation found that several people might have left the city without informing their families, due to the fear of earthquake and others might still be trapped in the debris of damaged buildings.
Case of Jhakku Prasad Khatri
Rita KC from western Nepal rushed to Kathmandu looking for her husband Jhakku Prasad Khatri after he became unreachable following the quake of 25 April. Khatri had reached Kathmandu just a day before the earthquake to leave for work abroad. Rita had suggested him to stay at their relatives’ place but he decided to stay at a hotel in Gongabu, one of the heavily damaged neighbourhoods in Kathmandu.
She left her two sons at home in western Nepal and stayed in Kathmandu for almost a month looking for her missing husband. She went to the neighbourhood where her husband last told her he was staying at, but she all she saw were fallen buildings lying atop one another. Despite making rounds at every hospital in Kathmandu there was no sign of her husband.
After the second earthquake hit Nepal on 12th May, she decided to go back home to her sons. “When they asked where their father was I couldn’t say anything,” says Rita.
Where is Amar?
Amar Sunar used to work as a gardener in a hotel in Kathmandu. His manager Ganesh Khadka tells that Sunar had left hotel the day before the earthquake and has been out of contact since then. “I filed complaint about his missing status to the police but there has been no progress in his search,” Khadka tell frantically. In the last month he has gone searching for Amar Sunar in every hospital in town and returned disappointed every time.
The Sunar family used to go to church on Saturdays so Khadka thinks that they might have been trapped under some damaged church. “I wish the police would start looking for people under damaged church buildings,” says Khadka.
“Mukesh must be buried under the collapsed hotel buildings”
Mukesh Nepali also from western Nepal had been working at Palpa Guest House in Kathmandu for the past one year. After going missing for a month his relatives have assumed that his body probably is trapped under the rubble of the hotel where he worked in. “Mukesh must be buried under the collapsed hotel buildings,” his uncle Bir Bahadur says.
The hotel where he worked was completed destroyed and 40-45 people are thought to be trapped there, including the owners.
Missing from the hospital
Belumaya Shrestha, 47, who had mental illness was admitted to a hospital in Kathmandu just few days before the earthquake. On 24 April when her husband Krishna Shrestha went to buy medicine she disappeared from the hospital ward. They looked for her everywhere that day and intensified their search after the earthquake but her whereabouts remain unknown.
“She wasn’t mentally stable and often tried to leave the hospital without telling anyone,” says her nephew Hari Shrestha. Her husband Krishna left Kathmandu feeling dejected, unable to find her even after the month long search.
Looking for his brother
Ramesh Basnet from eastern Nepal used to work as painter in Kathmandu. Before the earthquake struck he had talked to one of his relatives about leaving for Pokhara. But no one knows whether or not he ever left Kathmandu that day.
“We’ve tried calling him several times after the earthquake but he’s not been in touch,” says his sister Lakshmi Basnet who has been actively searching for her brother’s whereabouts. Ramesh’s wife works in Kuwait while his two sons are still in eastern Nepal. His parents have been heartbroken after he went missing. “Every day when they ask me about his whereabouts it breaks my heart,” says Lakshmi, “I tell them that the police are still looking for him.”
“He will be back”
Thirteen-year-old Suresh Ramtel left for Kathmandu from nearby Pharping but no one knows whether he ever reached Kathmandu. His family went searching for him everywhere from hospitals to medical camps run in open fields but Suresh hasn’t been found yet. They are now waiting for police investigation and are hopeful abut his return. His brother Shyam Ramtel says, “He is physically fit and even if he is trapped under the rubble we believe that he will come back.”
Still apart
Angel Gurung and her boyfriend Bishesh Shrestha were sitting behind the Dharahara tower, in the heart of Kathmandu when the earthquake struck. The ground beneath them shook and Angel stood up but Bishesh said it was only a light tremor. When the shaking persisted Bishesh started running and told Angel to do the same. Since then Bishesh hasn’t been seen. His family searched for him in every hospital and scanned every dead body but they found no trace of him. He is now listed among the 36 people gone missing from Kathmandu.
“In my heart I still have the hope that he will return,” says Angel. His family waited anxiously for him when the police force cleared rubble from the fallen Dharahara but they found nothing. They filed a missing report at the police but haven’t heard from them.
Where are Anushka and Reshmi?
A month after the earthquake of April 25, Kamala Saru Magar filed a missing report about her relatives Reshmi Sijali, 28 and her two year old daughter Anushka Sijali. Reshmi used to run a small hotel in Kathmandu’s densely populated neighborhood of Gongabu, one of the worst hit area. The hotel building collapsed killing Reshmi’s husband and father in law. Their bodies were recovered four days after the earthquake but Reshmi and her daughter’s whereabouts still remain unknown.
“When their bodies weren’t found we had some hope, but now a month later we’ve lost all hope and think they too are buried under the same rubble,” says Kamala.
Where is Suraj?
Suraj Pokharel used to work at a boutique in Kathmandu’s tourist hub of Thamel. He used often visit his relatives in the city but since the earthquake they haven’t heard from him. Suraj’s family in eastern Nepal is worried about him and has asked their relatives to look for him in Kathmandu. But so far they have not found him in any of the hospitals.
The unknown dead
TU Teaching Hospital in Kathmandu has 18 dead bodies who haven’t yet been claimed and 10 other bodies which have been completely damaged. Among them 14 are male, 3 are female and one is of a young girl. There is a body of a foreign woman as well. It is impossible for the police to gather information about bodies that have been severely deformed after deep injuries.
The bodies which are still intact have unclaimed tags on them. Among them lies a body of a male probably in his mid twenties tagged B3. The rings on his fingers are undamaged and so are the mobile phone sets without sim cards. There is another body with B7 tag, he looks like a man in his early twenties wearing a grey trousers, blue shirt and blue sweater, which has “Raktakali High School”, etched on it.
The third body marked B32 looks like a man in his late thirties. His nails are crumpled and he is dressed in a green hoodie and red trousers.
The remaining 15 bodies of the people whose identities are unknown were brought to the hospital mostly from the heavily damaged neighbourhood of Gongabu that housed a lot of small hotels and from Langtang a village along a popular trekking route that was swept by an avalanche. The colours of their clothes haven’t still faded and the accessories that adorn their bodies aren’t damaged either.
Gone missing, found behind bars
Sankar Bogati, 21 of Gongabu was strolling around Basantapur in central Kathmandu on 25 April. When the tremors shook the ground beneath him he rushed towards a densely packed market place nearby. Some young boys dashed inside a house and he followed them. Minutes later the police arrived and arrested all of them including Sankar.
What’s interesting is Sankar’s brother Saroj Bogati had filed a complaint at the police station about Sankar going missing but hadn’t heard from the police. While Sankar’s brother made several rounds in hospitals in Kathmandu looking for him, Sankar was spending his days behind the bars unable to contact anyone. His family had lost all hope of him returning alive.
But they were surprised when Sankar called them a month later. “I received a call from the central jail and I heard Sankar’s voice,” says Saroj who rushed to the police station to meet him.
The police had arrested Sankar and other young boys along with him charging them for public offence. When he wasn’t able to pay bail Sankar was sent to prison where he lied about his name. “We don’t care whether or not he committed any crime, we are just so glad that he is alive,” says Saroj.
Too traumatised to remember anything
Among the dozens patients being treated at the Army Hospital in Chhauni, Kathmandu there are two patients, a young girl Sophia and an elderly woman Saili Tamang. The two of them survived the earthquake but they were so traumatised by the earthquake that they aren’t able to recall vital information about their family and home district.
Sophia, 16, was admitted to the hospital on the evening of the earthquake to treat head injuries. Although her injuries have healed they’ve scarred her memory making it impossible for her to remember where she is from. “All she says is that she has parents and siblings at home, she doesn’t even remember her last name,” says hospital spokesperson Bajendra Srivastav.
Similarly even Saili Tamang, 65, is unable to recall where is she from or the names of her family members. She was trapped in a building in Kathmandu and has been receiving treatment at the hospital for a month now. But no one has come inquiring about her. “Whom should we leave her with now?” asks Srivastav.
While several dead bodies haven’t yet been claimed there are some families who were fortunate enough to recognize their loved ones through the personal items. Twenty one year old Sagar Mal’s body was brought to TU Teaching Hospital in Kathmandu from a guest house in Gongabu. His famiy recognised his body from the pendant on his neck. “Our sister knew that Sagar’s girlfriend had given him a pendant with his initials and based on that we identified his body,” says Tindurel, Sagar’s older brother. He says Sagar had come to Kathmandu with his friends from western Nepal for a medical check up before leaving for work in Qatar. “Sagar’s friends survived by jumping outside the building but he was down at the reception and couldn’t make it out on time,” Tindurel says of his brother’s ill-fated death.
Jaylal Raut from Bara in eastern Nepal had come to Kathmandu a week before the earthquake to leave for work abroad. But he lost his life during the quake and his body was brought to TU Teaching Hospital. When the police was unable to contact his family, they hung his clothes on the information board of the hospital. Raut’s nephew recongnised the clothes and came to claim the body.
The family had no proof to claim Raut’s dead body so they brought a document from his village with his thumbprint and matched it with the dead body’s. When the both matched the family was finally allowed to take the body home.
