When Amrit Diyali saw a human hand washed downstream by floodwaters, he was struck by how closely it resembled his younger brother Raj Kumar’s, who has been missing along with his wife and four-year-old son since the devastating floods hit Nepal.

“I found a hand that looks exactly like uncle’s,” Diyali’s nephew Avinash told him after sending him a photograph of the severed hand, according to The Kathmandu Post newspaper.

For Diyali, the discovery brought both hope and dread. A DNA test is now his family’s only chance of knowing whether the remains belong to his brother.

The case reflects a much larger challenge facing Nepal, where authorities are relying on DNA testing to identify hundreds of bodies recovered after the August 26 floods and help families find relatives who remain missing.

Flash floods, triggered by an ice-rock avalanche near the Nepal-Tibet border on August 26, devastated towns and villages in northern and central Nepal.

The Bhotekoshi River, which flows south from the Himalayan border region, carried the floodwaters downstream, sweeping away homes, vehicles, roads and bridges and damaging hydropower projects.

It has killed more than 1,300, while around 5,000 people remain missing.

Police have so far collected 2,272 DNA samples — 1,260 from bodies and 1,012 from relatives — as they try to establish the identities of those killed in the disaster, The Kathmandu Post reported.

Authorities said 1,030 bodies had been buried after DNA samples were collected and other identification procedures completed. The figure includes 222 women, 355 men and 453 bodies whose sex could not be established, the newspaper reported.

Only 96 bodies have been handed over to families so far after identification, according to Nepal’s National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority.

Identifying the dead has emerged as a major challenge.

Bodies recovered after being swept downstream have often been severely damaged, decomposed or recovered only in parts, making identification by face, clothing or personal belongings difficult, officials said.

Prolonged immersion in water and exposure to mud and debris can destroy identifiable features, while some remains have been fragmented or mixed with other remains. Forensic experts say DNA testing has therefore become crucial, but it is a time-consuming process requiring samples from the remains and biological relatives for comparison.

Fingerprints and dental records can also establish identities, but their usefulness depends on the condition of the remains and the availability of matching records, said officials.

For families such as the Diyali’s, however, identification is not merely a forensic exercise. It is a way of ending days of uncertainty and allowing them to perform the final rites of their loved ones.

Raj Kumar, 33, his 30-year-old wife Shriti and their four-year-old son Siraj were living in Syaphrubesi in Rasuwa district when the Bhotekoshi flood struck. His relatives searched along the river as far as Chitwan and Nawalpur, turning over mud and stones in the hope of finding the family. When they could not find them alive, they began looking for their bodies.

Five days after the flood, Raj Kumar’s nephew, Avinash, found the hand in Nawalpur. The family sent a sample from it to the National Forensic Science Laboratory in Kathmandu on Tuesday for DNA testing. The sample is 182nd in line for testing, according to Diyali.

“We have stopped hoping for anything else,” he told The Kathmandu Post. “Even if that hand turns out to be my brother’s, at least we would know for sure.”

To make the process easier for families, Nepal Police has opened a DNA sample collection centre in Bidur, Nuwakot, allowing relatives of missing people to provide samples without travelling to Kathmandu, the Ratopati news portal reported.

Deputy Inspector General of Nepal Police Hospital Damodar Poudel said samples from close blood relatives such as parents, children and siblings are particularly useful for comparison with DNA obtained from unidentified bodies.

According to Poudel, DNA testing will help in identification, as there are difficulties in identifying the bodies.

Authorities have also uploaded details of 1,270 unidentified bodies on the Nepal Police website so families can check whether their missing relatives are among those recovered, The Kathmandu Post reported.

Moscow, Sep 5: Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a 72-hour pause in strikes on Kyiv, the Kremlin said Saturday, as US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner arrived in Moscow to try to revive a stalled push to end Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

“Putin has ordered that no strikes be carried out against Kyiv for three days, starting at midnight today,” presidential spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told Russia’s Tass news agency. He said the decision was tied to preparations for Witkoff and Kushner’s planned visit to the Ukrainian capital, which Kyiv has said will take place on Sunday.

The envoys’ trip comes as both sides escalate aerial attacks, some 4.5-years after the Kremlin’s invasion of its neighbour. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Friday that Ukraine would halt airstrikes during the envoys’ visit and urged Moscow to do the same.

Washington’s push to end the fighting, now in its fifth year, has lost momentum as US attention has been focused for the last six months on its war with Iran. The last known visit to Moscow by Witkoff and Kushner, US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, was in January, when they met Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin. They have never previously visited Kyiv.

The envoys were met at the airport by Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev, Tass reported. Dmitriev shared photos of him meeting the US delegation as they disembarked, alongside the caption, “Welcome to Moscow Peacemakers.”

With peace efforts stalled, Russia has intensified its attacks on Kyiv and other cities with relentless bombardments recently stretching into daylight hours, taking advantage of Ukraine’s shortage of air defensive systems.

On Friday, a Russian drone hit one of the most important government buildings in Kyiv — the headquarters of Ukraine’s Security Service, known as the SBU, which is one of the agencies involved in carrying out deep-strike operations inside Russia.

The long-range strikes by Ukraine have hit Russian military facilities, oil refineries and e-commerce hubs, seeking to undermine the Kremlin’s war effort and economy, as well as make ordinary citizens feel the consequences of the war.

Zelenskyy links Russian strikes to envoys’ visit

The air war between Russia and Ukraine has intensified as troops have struggled to make progress along the 1,250-kilometre front line. Russia has recently been using fast-flying, jet-powered drones, and the recurring wail of air-raid sirens has become part of daily life in Kyiv.

In a social media post on Saturday, Zelenskyy said that Russia had carried out overnight strikes on Kyiv and Boryspil international airports, and linked the attack to the planned US visit.

“Clearly, these Russian strikes on the airports are a reaction to the discussions and preparations for the possibility of the US side using an aircraft to travel to Ukraine,” he said.

“We have taken note of this Russian move, and next week we will adjust our operation accordingly regarding Russian airspace, which has become dangerous because of our drones and missiles in the sky. Of course, there are and will be no threats to diplomacy from our side.”

Strikes kill 5 at Ukrainian industrial site

Russian attacks killed five people and wounded five more at an industrial facility in Ukraine’s southern Dnipropetrovsk region, local military administration head Oleksandr Hanzha said. He described those killed as employees at the site. “A locksmith, an electrician, a plumber and a machinist. People of peaceful professions. They were simply working their shift. They were doing their job when enemy missiles cut off their lives,” he said.

A 62-year-old man was wounded and several homes and an apartment building were damaged in a separate attack on the region’s Nikopol district, Hanzha said.

In a statement Saturday, Russia’s Ministry of Defence said it had carried out strikes on two metallurgical plants in the region, describing them as “major suppliers of metal products for Ukraine’s military production.”

A further two people were wounded in an overnight Russian attack on Ukraine’s Kyiv region, said Tymur Tkachenko, head of the regional military administration. In the Boryspil district, a fire sparked by a strike partially destroyed a nine-story residential building.

Russian forces also repeatedly struck a shopping centre in the southern Mykolaiv region with drones overnight, damaging retail premises and sparking fires, Ukraine’s state emergency services said. A 72-year-old man and a 17-year-old girl were hurt.

Emergency crews responding to the incident were repeatedly forced to withdraw to safety because of the threat of further strikes, returning whenever conditions allowed, the emergency services said.

Russia launched ballistic missiles from its Rostov and Voronezh regions and deployed 167 attack drones overnight, Ukraine’s air force said. The drones included Shahed-type aircraft — around half of them jet-powered — as well as Geran and decoy drones. Ukrainian air defences shot down or suppressed 128 drones, according to the air force.

Elsewhere, Ukrainian attacks wounded three people, including a 14-year-old girl, in Russia’s border region of Belgorod, local officials said.

In a statement, Russia’s Ministry of Defence said that its forces had shot down 53 Ukrainian drones overnight.