From Banks of Bagmati

Were it not for the partially collapsed building, Arya Ghat, the largest cremation site in Kathmandu, adjacent to the Pashupati would look almost the same as before. Just ten days after the earthquake, tourists are back as are devotees and mourners. Visitors gawk at the temples, believers bow their heads, and sadhus of all hues loiter among the sprinkling of monuments overlooking the Bagmati River. But not all is the same of course. For one, the cremation site has been forced to cremate hundreds of people since the April 25 earthquake, a trend that continues as more and more dead bodies are retrieved from under the rubble and many of those seriously injured succumb to their injuries.

Between 25 April and 5 May, the 25 people employed by the Pashupati Area Development Trust (PADT), (which manages the cremation ground adjacent to the Pashupati temple), helped cremate over 530 people, most of them from Kathmandu Valley where the death toll has crossed 1680. Many of those cremated are unidentified. Others are brought by family members, but the cremation is a quick affair unlike the usual elaborate rituals. "Grieving families usually accompany the body of their loved ones. But the police also brought in about 20 unidentified bodies some days back. I guess rather than wait for the bodies to rot, they wanted to cremate it," says Shabho Paudel, an office manager at Arya Ghat. The number of bodies coming in peaked on 26 April when 154 earthquake victims were cremated. On the morning of 4 May only 4 bodies had come in.