Nepal’s forensic laboratories are racing against time, 15 days after the devastating Bhote Koshi-Trishuli flood, as thousands of DNA samples pour into facilities accustomed to processing fewer than 900 tests a year.
With visual identification becoming increasingly difficult due to decomposition and severe injuries, DNA testing has emerged as the main hope of identifying 1,265 bodies and human remains that are still unidentified.
The latest figures show that 2,678 DNA samples have been collected for identification — 1,286 from deceased victims and 1,412 from their relatives. The Nepal Police forensic laboratory alone has received 1,240 samples for DNA and related examinations. These include 808 blood samples from relatives, 348 teeth and bone samples from the deceased and 84 fingerprint samples. Blood samples for DNA profiling have arrived from 26 districts.
“Samples from the deceased and their relatives are continuously being received. We are working day and night,” said laboratory chief SSP Yog Bahadur Pal.
Disaster Scale Pushes Labs Beyond Capacity
The mounting scale of the disaster is adding to the pressure. Nepal has so far recovered 1,367 bodies and human remains, including 498 partial remains. Only 102 victims have been identified and handed over to their families, while 5,132 people remain officially missing, including around 589 foreigners.
Nepal has two major DNA testing facilities — the Central Forensic Science Laboratory and the National Forensic Science Laboratory. Before the disaster, the latter processed around 40–45 DNA tests a month, or roughly 350 a year. Nepal Police records show that 358 DNA samples were processed over seven months during a recent fiscal year.
The current influx has therefore overwhelmed the country’s routine forensic capacity.
“The bodies are difficult to identify because they have been badly damaged and dismembered,” Nepal Police spokesperson Abi Narayan Kafle told TOI. “In some cases, two, even three, different families have even claimed the same body.”
Foreign Teams Join the Identification Effort
Forensic teams from India, China, Singapore and South Korea are assisting Nepal in the painstaking identification process. Experts, however, say the country must also make full use of its own available but underutilised forensic capacity to cope with the unprecedented workload.
Alongside DNA testing, authorities are turning to facial-comparison technology to narrow down possible identities while families wait for laboratory results.
FaceTagr, deployed through a Nepal-specific missing-person portal, compares photographs of missing individuals with images of unidentified victims. The technology can reduce thousands of possibilities to a smaller group of likely matches, which are then reviewed by humans.
Samir Panthi, founder of US-based Nowtrkit, said around 500 missing people had been registered on the platform and that the system had generated possible matches for approximately 90 bodies.
However, Panthi cautioned that facial recognition is considerably more effective with photographs of living people than with images of bodies affected by swelling, injuries, decomposition or closed eyes.
As the search for thousands of missing people continues, Nepal’s forensic laboratories face a race against time — with DNA testing remaining the most reliable path to restoring names and identities to victims whose families are still waiting for answers.
