Gandhinagar
A 10-member team from Gujarat’s National Forensic Sciences University (NFSU) has left for Nepal to assist in identifying people who died in the flash floods, as the scale of the disaster leaves families across India waiting for information about missing relatives.
The team, led by Bhargav Patel, Head of NFSU’s Centre of Excellence in DNA Forensics, will carry out Disaster Victim Identification (DVI), including DNA sample matching. It will work under the joint supervision of the Union Ministry of External Affairs and Ministry of Home Affairs. The deployment comes as Nepal continues a large-scale search and recovery operation following the flash floods that struck central Nepal and the Nepal-Tibet border region on August 26. By Saturday, Nepal’s death toll had risen to 669, while nearly 2,000 people were still reported missing. Thousands of people have been rescued or evacuated, although damaged roads, bridges and other infrastructure have complicated access to affected areas. The disaster has also affected a large number of Indian nationals. The Ministry of External Affairs said in its August 28 briefing that efforts are continuing to locate Indian citizens affected by the floods and coordinate their evacuation and return.
The number of Gujarat-linked people reported missing at 25, including several overseas citizens. The identification of victims has emerged as a major challenge, with many families still awaiting confirmation about relatives who have not been traced. Nepal authorities have been maintaining lists of rescued and missing people, while identification and recovery operations continue in the affected districts. “The team would provide families of missing people with complete details about their relatives once the identification process is completed. Experts would collect and match DNA samples from recovered remains with samples from relatives, following established DVI procedures,” the NFSU said.
The university cited its experience following the AI-171 aircraft crash on June 12 last year, when DNA matching of the deceased was completed within 10 days. NFSU also said forensic experts from the university have been working with the US Department of Defense to help locate American soldiers who went missing in India during World War II, with the mortal remains of three soldiers recovered through the effort. NFSU has academic and specialist capabilities in human identification and disaster victim identification.