Nepal Digs Mass Graves as 100 Trapped Underground

Thapa said the burials are not final. "People are worried that this could be a permanent burial, but it is only temporary management," he said. "If someone is able to verify the identity later using the available information, they can take back the body and perform the appropriate funeral rites."

The burials are raw in a predominantly Hindu country where the dead are traditionally cremated. Ruby Chaudhary, who has two missing relatives, said families should have to consent. "The dead deserve to be treated with dignity," she said. "Our tradition is to cremate them on the riverbank, surrounded by their immediate family."

Nepal's foreign secretary, Amrit Bahadur Rai, defended the decision at a Kathmandu press briefing, saying it followed internationally accepted disaster-management protocols including those of the International Committee of the Red Cross. "Families can match records later, and will be allowed to exhume (the remains later) for necessary rituals," he said.

Survivors described exhaustion under near-constant alarms. "Sometimes they say a flood is coming, then we have to run again to higher ground, even at night," resident Govind Shreshta told the AP. "I have a 72-year-old father and 70-year-old mom. I must carry them and I am exhausted."

In hard-hit Dhading, Sharmila Tamang, sifting through what was left of her home, told the AP: "Everything is finished. Nothing is left. Not even our home."

Nepal's foreign minister, Shisir Khanal, called Saturday for a global response to climate change. "Despite having only 0.1% contribution to the global emissions, people of Nepal have become major victims of climate change," he said. Scientists say it is too early to tie this specific disaster to global warming, but note that warming raises the odds of such events in the Himalayas, which are heating faster than most of the planet.