Indian team arrives in Nepal to search for missing passengers and two buses

Kathmandu: Twelve rescue personnel from India on Sunday joined the Nepali security forces in their search for several missing passengers on two buses that were washed away by a landslide into a swollen river in Nepal last week.

The Indian rescue team from the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) reached Bagmati province's Chitwan on Saturday at the request of Nepal. Seven Indian nationals were in one of the buses. The bodies of three of them have been recovered so far.

Nepal sought assistance from India to carry out a search operation for the buses that swept into the Trishuli River after a landslide hit the region on July 12.

The Indian team started the search operation on Sunday morning, The Kathmandu Post newspaper reported.

As many as 19 bodies were recovered after the buses carrying 65 passengers met with casualty along the Narayanghat-Muglin road section and were swept away by the Trishuli River.

Three passengers managed to get outside the bus and swam to the bank.

Twelve personnel from India's NDRF, trained in rescue and search operations, will be deployed for a search operation for seven days, according to Chitwan’s Chief District Officer Indradev Yadav.

The team, which includes four divers, arrived with the necessary devices, including three sonar cameras.

Rescue and search teams from the Nepal Army, Nepal Police and Armed Police Force (APF) have been searching the wreckage of buses and the passengers since the day of the incident with little success so far.

The bodies from the two buses were washed away down the Trishuli River as far as 100 kilometres.

Of the 62 passengers swept away along with the buses, 24 bodies have been recovered from various locations in Nepal and also from the Indian side.

However, only 15 of the bodies have been confirmed to be passengers of the missing buses.

According to sources here, at least four of the recovered bodies were of Indians.

Nepal's rivers are generally fast-flowing due to the mountainous terrain. Heavy monsoon downpours in the past few days have swollen the waterways and turned them murky brown, making it even more difficult to see the wreckage.

Monsoon season brings heavy rains to Nepal from June to September, often triggering landslides in the mountainous Himalayan country.