THE number of missing Brits in Nepal has reportedly risen to 48 as officials are forced to begin burying bodies before they are identified.

Only 20 people out of the nearly 800 killed in the horror floods have been reunited with their families as desperate loved ones continue to search overflowing hospitals and mortuaries.

Santosh Sahu (left) Surabhi Padhy (right) and their children Spandan Sahu (centre) and Syna Kumari Sahu (top) are among the missing

The family, aged between 13 and 46, were headed to Gosainkunda when disaster struck

Horrifying drone footage shows buildings wiped out by the devastation

A tour group, believed to include a missing Brit girl, 13, were pictured smiling before crossing into Nepal

More bodies are being found every day as the death toll continues to climb and hospitals buckle under the pressure of storing the bodies.

In a tragic plea, the Nepalese government has asked for more freezers to be sent from abroad to contain the dead.

They have also warned the nation is running out of body bags amid the ongoing recovery operations on the Tibet border.

More than 2,400 people remain missing with officials warning there is “less than a one per cent chance” they are still alive.

Among the unaccounted are reportedly 48 Brits after China said that 15 Brits were missing in Tibet.

China and Nepal have been announcing separate, and often varying figures, during the disaster making official tolls hard to confirm.

Bodies being recovered from the mudslides are said to be so decomposed from spending days underwater that they are nearly unidentifiable.

The Nepalese government has ordered DNA samples to be taken from all the bodies which have not been identified or claimed by loved ones.

More than 2,400 people are missing as the death toll climbs daily

The bodies will then be buried in mass graves in order to “prevent a public health crisis”.

One official told the Daily Mail: “They will be given dignified burials, and we will take photographs of the bodies and DNA samples so that they can hopefully be identified at some point in the future.

“The scale of the disaster is so big that we cannot cope with the number of dead we are finding.”

Posters of missing people line the walls of hospitals as heartbroken family members scour health centres and morgues for their loved ones.

The morgue at Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital already holds around 60 bodies.

Dr Gopal Sedain, a spokesperson from the hospital, said: “Our mortuary only has capacity for 50 people, and we cannot take any more. From tomorrow, the bodies of those found in the flood will be taken to an area outside Kathmandu and buried.

In a tragic admission, he added: “So far, we have only managed to identify one and we handed that body over to the family. But it has been impossible to identify any of the others and that is heartbreaking for us and their relatives.

“But we cannot cope any longer with the number of dead bodies we are receiving.”

Leena Bector, from Slough, has not been heard from since the day before the flash floods

Pramod Poudel (right) has not heard from his wife Sumitra Sapkota (left) since the devastating floods hit their hometown

The hospital recently saw the rescue of a five-year-old girl called Manisha.

The girl was miraculously rescued by search teams after they heard what they thought was a cat mewling under the rubble.

Dr Gopal Sedain said: “She’s doing well and recovering, which is incredible given that she was under the rubble for almost four days. She’s one of the few lucky ones.”

Hundreds of loved ones are still searching for their family and visit the hospital several times a day in hope of news.

One man, Prem, said he was looking for his cousin who had been working on the Nepal-Tibet border.

He said: “I’ve been on the website and it’s not easy looking at it. There are horrific pictures of dead people whose faces are in such bad condition that you can’t recognise them.

“I’ve been roaming around Kathmandu and nearby areas going from hospital to hospital but there is no news.”

Another man, Shaligram, holds a photo of his brother in military uniform.

Rescue workers scouring the land as the number of dead rises every day

Homes have been utterly destroyed as a wall of mud and water crashed through the Nepal-China border

Unable to hold back his tears, he said: “Our whole family is devastated, we have absolutely no idea where my brother is. He served his country, the job was his life, but our fear is that his life now has come to an end.

“We’re so desperate, we just want his body so that we can give him the funeral that he deserves.”

The government’s decision to bury bodies is a further agony for many of Nepal‘s Buddhist and Hindu believers who believe a body must be cremated for the soul to find peace.

A spokesperson at another hospital,  the Kathmandu Trauma Centre, said: “We are doing what we can for the living but for the dead we will now bury them as quickly as we can before being able to establish who they are.

“It’s not easy for us because this goes against Nepali traditions, but these are desperate times for our nation.”

Source: https://www.the-sun.com/news/16924035/missing-brits-nepal-floods-mass-burials-begin/