Bhubaneswar: The Odisha government has sent DNA test reports of relatives of four Odisha-origin persons who went missing following the devastating glacial collapse and flash floods in Nepal last month, an official said on Friday.
The disaster, which struck the Himalayan nation on August 26, claimed at least 1,410 lives and left more than 6,100 people missing. Several bodies recovered from the affected areas are yet to be identified, prompting authorities to use DNA profiling to establish their identities.
Two families from Odisha are among those awaiting information about their missing members. Sandeep Mohapatra and his wife Sidharthi Kumari Sahu, natives of Khordha district who have been settled in Australia since 2018, went missing in the disaster.
Gunnam Saibindu and her 18-month-old daughter Gunnam Hareeksha, originally from Bargarh district, are also missing. Saibindu’s husband, Gunnam Jay Krishna, works as an engineer at a hydropower project in Nepal’s Rasuwa district. He was at the project site when the disaster occurred, while his wife and daughter were staying in a residential colony around 14 km away. The colony was swept away by floodwaters and debris.
DNA samples were collected from the parents of the NRI couple and from Saibindu’s relatives. The reports have been sent to the Indian Embassy in Nepal as well as the Nepalese authorities for matching with unidentified bodies.
Officials said the authorities will inform the families if DNA profiling establishes a match with any of the unidentified bodies.
According to the latest figures, bodies of 1,410 people have been recovered from eight affected districts of Nepal, while 13,756 people have so far been rescued from the flood-hit areas.
