Archived event
Bharatpur Hospital runs out of freezer space as bodies near 200
This briefing has been overtaken
It was published at 28 August 2026, 8:00 pm NPT and is kept online as the record of what was confirmed at that hour. Figures in it are no longer current.
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Chitwan's hospitals are struggling to keep up with the bodies the flood has brought them. Bharatpur Hospital's freezers hold only 24 bodies, and most of that space was already taken by unclaimed bodies before the flood, chief medical superintendent Dr Bishwabandhu Bagale told Onlinekhabar. By Thursday evening 137 bodies had reached the hospital, and staff expected the total to reach around 200 by Friday evening.
Bodies that do not fit in the freezers have been kept in corridors and outside areas covered with tarpaulins, and some have started to decompose in the heat, Bagale said. Four forensic teams, reinforced by staff from Bheri Hospital, hospitals in the Lumbini region and Nepal Medical College, are working around the clock on post-mortems, fingerprints and photographs to identify the dead.
Identified bodies are being moved to a temporary, air-conditioned body management centre the government is setting up in a building near the Chitwan Industrial Association, on Vidhyut Road in Bharatpur. About 58 bodies had been processed and moved there by Friday afternoon, Onlinekhabar reports. Local business groups are supplying dry ice to slow decomposition while identification continues.
Chitwan has recorded more bodies than any other district in this flood, most of them carried down the Trishuli and Narayani from Rasuwa, Nuwakot and Dhading.
Families looking for someone should go through the District Police Office or the local ward office rather than to hospitals directly, since those are the lists that get updated centrally.