Mourners pay their respects to Nawakul Sharma, 33, during his funeral at Pashupatinath Temple in Kathmandu, Nepal, on Sept. 1, 2026. (Jeong Bong-bi/Hankyoreh)
The spirits of those who drowned in the flood rose toward the sky on a thick, acrid cloud of smoke.“May you live in heaven.” A woman whose face was painted red stroked the face of her late husband, Nawakul Sharma, 33, whose body was covered in flowers, and whispered this three times in his ear.Accompanied by the sound of the shankha, a traditional Nepali wind instrument, Sharma’s funeral pyre was set alight. Smoke and white ash billowed into the air, and the ashes that did not rise were washed away into the Bagmati River next to the crematorium.As Nepal on Tuesday entered the seventh day since massive floods and mudslides tore through the country, grief settled over communities. Each day brought fresh anguish, as the death toll continued to climb with the recovery and identification of bodies from the disaster zone.Though only 100 fatalities had been reported on the day of the disaster, by Monday that number had soared to nearly 1,000. Families searching for traces of their missing loved ones, not knowing if they were dead or alive, grew more desperate in their efforts.
