Nepal flood families hold symbolic cremations as search for missing victims fades

Families in Nepal's Nuwakot and Rasuwa districts have turned to symbolic cremation rituals after failing to recover the bodies of relatives lost in recent floods. Unable to perform traditional last rites, grieving kin used effigies made of kusha grass as stand-ins for the deceased. Search efforts across multiple locations yielded no results, leaving families with little hope of finding their loved ones. Hindu priests guided the bereaved through ancient rituals intended to help liberate the souls of the missing. More than a hundred such effigies were cremated at Kathmandu's Pashupati Aryaghat, one of Nepal's most sacred cremation sites.