We have policies for dead-body management

From Onlinekhabar English

We have policies for dead-body management. We have plans for search and rescue. We have flood forecasts, early-warning systems, hazard maps and disaster institutions. But perhaps we have not yet designed our development system for the scale and speed of disasters that are now becoming possible. The devastation that unfolded along the Bhote Koshi–Trishuli river system on August 26 should force Nepal to ask a difficult question: Are we actually reducing disaster risk — or are we becoming increasingly efficient at responding to disasters after they have already happened? The distinction matters, and the numbers now emerging make it impossible to avoid. What we now know As of Saturday (August 29), four days after the event, Nepal Police had confirmed 669 deaths, while a provisional count put the number of people still unaccounted for at more than 2,500. NDRRMA’s own tally put the number of missing at 977 as of Thursday, illustrating how fluid—and contested—even the basic casualty picture remains this early in the response. By then, police had deployed more than 4,300 personnel and reported rescuing over 1,500 people, including hundreds from Rasuwa and Nuwakot.