BAJHANG, OCTOBER 28

A joint team of security agencies that had been dispatched to Thalara Rural Municipality-4 in Bajhang to seek for the 19 individuals who had gone missing after a landslide has called off their search and returned empty-handed.

The fact that the search and rescue crew returned with no results implies that the missing people have a minimal probability of being discovered alive, according to the police.

'Now we do not have any hope of finding them alive. The search team has halted a search and returned without possibility to find them,' said Deputy Superintendent of Police Rupak Khadka.

So all the missing ones would be declared dead after following due procedure, said Chief District Officer Mohan Adhikari. Twenty three members of two families at Dikla in Thalara-4 had gone missing in the landslip in the third week of October.

Of them, bodies of four were retrieved from debris. Only remains of the two below the waist were found. Following the disaster, a joint team of the Nepali Army, Armed Police Force and Nepal Police searched for the missing ones for eight consecutive days, but to no avail.