One body recovered at Nepal power plant where South Koreans worked, nationality unknown

A Chinese rescue team recovered one body from a tunnel at Nepal’s Upper Trishuli-1 hydropower plant, where nine South Koreans had worked. The person’s nationality and identity remained unknown.

The recovery came six days after large landslides and floods struck. Reports citing AFP said at least 919 people had died and 4,793 were missing in Nepal and China. Nepal’s disaster authority put the country’s toll at 903 dead and 4,247 missing, while China’s Tibet Autonomous Region reported 16 deaths and 546 missing.

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The bodies are rapidly decomposing and pose a risk to public health.

Rescue operations continued, but many residents remained isolated. Nepal’s disaster authority said at least 933 workers were trapped inside tunnels at about six hydropower plants. The rescue team reached a point 300 meters inside the Upper Trishuli-1 tunnel before recovering the body.

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There is no other choice.

The disaster also affected schools. Nepal’s Education Ministry said more than 200 students were missing and at least 19 schools in areas including Rasuwa and Nuwakot had been buried or flooded.

Rapid decomposition forced authorities to consider mass burials before identifying the dead. Ganesh Aryal, the chief administrative official in Nepal’s Bharatpur area of Chitwan district, told Reuters that the bodies were creating a public-health risk and that authorities had no other choice. Officials buried 96 bodies on the 29th and about 200 more on the 30th. Residents objected that the authorities were acting too quickly and disregarding a tradition of holding funerals several days after death.

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More than 200 students are missing.