Devendra Bhattarai

A team from the Nepali Embassy in New Delhi has reached Guptakashi in Uttarakhand to take stock of the situation of the missing Nepalis in the floods and landslides that hit the Badri-Kedar area more than two months ago.

The team comprises Councillor Yadu Kharel; Pushpa Raj Pandey and Tara Chand of the Nepali Society in Haridwar and local journalist Lakhpat Rana in Guptakashi. According to the team members, authorities are yet to dig the debris for the bodies.

“We’re walking to Gaurikund from Sonprayag,” Pandey told the Post over the phone. They came across several Nepali people who were still searching for their lost relatives in the affected regions of Haridwar and Rishikesh.
Some 500 Nepali pilgrims are believed to have been affected by the calamity. The Uttarakhand State government estimates that around 6,000 pilgrims and others have been missing.

The Nepal Ministry of Foreign Affairs, at the directive of Chief Secretary Leela Mani Poudel, dispatched the team from the Nepali mission in Delhi to undertake a study of the disaster site.

Published on: 26 August 2013 | The Kathmandu Post