Nepal holds day of mourning for more than 1,300 killed in floods

Nepal is holding a national day of mourning to remember more than 1,300 people who died in last month’s catastrophic floods.

Government offices in Nepal and missions abroad are flying the national flag at half-mast on Monday, the 13th day since the floods, the Ministry of Home Affairs said in a statement.

In the Hindu tradition, it is the final day of the mourning period, during which close family members stay at home and relatives visit to pay their respects. On the final day, rituals are held to pray for those who died.

The government has not planned any wider events for this day of mourning because search teams are still looking for survivors and resources are limited.

“There are no government programmes organised as the rescue and search operation is still going on in the flood-hit areas,” Phanindra Paudel of the National Emergency Operation Center (NEOC) told the Reuters news agency.

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 region on August 26, causing flooding that killed at least 1,380 people and left more than 5,500 missing.

In recent days, search teams in Nepal have rescued four people, including a Chinese national who was pulled from a tunnel at a hydropower site on Saturday. The others rescued were two hydropower workers from another tunnel on Friday, as well as a Nepali woman pulled out from her buried house on Saturday.

President Ram Chandra Paudel, the ceremonial head of state, is touring flood-hit areas on Monday and will survey damage caused by the disaster, his aide said.