Nepal's Flash Flood Death Toll Reaches 1,127 With More Than 4,800 People Missing

One week after flash floods struck Nepal, the police death toll has risen to 1,127 with more than 4,800 people still missing, The Hindu reported. Nepal Police have uploaded details of 911 unidentified bodies to their website so families can try to identify missing relatives.

The government's handling of the dead has become a second dispute. Euronews reported that many Nepalis objected after officials said they intended to carry out temporary mass burials, with members of the country's largely Hindu population saying the practice conflicts with religious tradition.

BBC News Hindi reported that video recorded before and after the disaster, together with satellite imagery, is now establishing the scale of the destruction. In the footage a large part of a border complex appears to have been washed away, and buildings on the valley floor are gone entirely.

Prime Minister Balendra Shah attributed the flood that reached Rasuwa to climate change. Whatever the attribution, the economic structure of the loss is familiar in low-income mountain economies: the destroyed assets were roads, bridges, housing and small businesses, almost none of it insured, and the reconstruction will be funded by the state budget and by external grants rather than by claims payments.