Photographs of unidentified dead plaster the walls of a major hospital in Kathmandu, printed on A4 paper and displayed in the hope someone will recognise them. But the rain regularly arrives before a loved one can — streaking and washing away the faces, forcing them to be reprinted.
Rescuers in the areas hardest hit have to prioritise survivors. They cannot bring all the bodies back, so photos are taken instead.
Hanging alongside the pictures of the lost is a noticeboard with lists of survivors and the injured. Crowds of people gather at the gates of the Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital, desperately hoping they will find their loved ones on the latter.
More than 1,900 people are now missing in Nepal after a glacial collapse sent a wall of water, mud and debris tearing through the valley on the border with Tibet, wiping out communities. Some 517 bodies have been recovered on the Nepali side.
Hung next to the pictures of the deceased are smiling photos of those who are missing — remnants of better days. Friends and family are taking matters into their own hands, posting pictures of the people they are searching for.
Police and volunteers are set up at desks, taking the names and numbers of those who have missing relatives. Some people come multiple times a day in the desperate hope they will receive good news.
Among the crowd at the hospital is Tilmaya Gurung. She has been visiting hospitals and morgues in the city searching for news of her sister’s husband, Meg Bahadur, who was working at a hydropower plant in Rasuwa when the flood hit. The 49-year-old has two children.
“We tried his phone several times but his phone is not connecting,” she wept. “We came here to hospital to check the list pasted here but not found his name on the list.”
The disaster, the deadliest natural disaster to hit Nepal since the 2015 earthquake, has also drawn international concern. The family of Western Australian man Luke Costanzo is “hoping for a miracle” as the search for survivors continues. Costanzo was travelling with a group that last made contact at the Gyirong Port border crossing between China and Nepal.