Kathmandu, Sept. 13: Nepal Police has adopted three methods, DNA testing, fingerprint analysis and photographic matching, to identify victims who died in the Bhotekoshi flood.
Nepal Police central spokesperson Abinarayan Kafle said DNA testing is being conducted at the Nepal Police Central Forensic Science Laboratory and the laboratory of the Nepal Academy of Science and Technology in Khumaltar, based on samples collected from bodies recovered after the flood.
Police are conducting the tests with great care to prevent errors in the DNA samples collected for identification. Experts from India, China, South Korea and Singapore have also arrived in Nepal to assist the police teams. Indian and South Korean experts are supporting the police forensic laboratory, while Indian and Chinese experts are assisting at the Khumaltar laboratory.
Four machines are currently being used for DNA testing. After the necessary preparations, one machine can produce a result from a sample in about 90 minutes. The machine, though, must be fully sterilised before another sample can be tested.
Experts say DNA testing from bones and teeth can take up to four days. The bones and teeth are first ground into powder and placed in special chemicals. Further testing can begin only after about 72 hours.
By Saturday afternoon, 1,230 bodies had been processed for identification and buried. A total of 3,065 DNA samples had been collected, including 1,286 from the deceased and 1,779 from their relatives.
The Nepal Police forensic laboratory has an annual capacity of about 400 DNA tests. It is currently processing around 25 to 30 samples a day, Kafle said. Police began collecting DNA samples on September 13, and more than 400 samples have so far been tested.
Experts say some samples may require repeat testing. Up to 30 percent of DNA samples extracted from bones and teeth may need to be tested again, particularly because of the difficulty of obtaining usable DNA from such remains.
Police are working to complete DNA testing of recovered bodies as quickly as possible. Preparations are also under way to operate a laboratory at the Bagmati Province Police Office in Hetauda to speed up the process.
“We are preparing to operate another laboratory at the provincial police office in Hetauda as soon as possible. We have already brought in the machine and are setting it up. It will come into operation within a week,” Kafle said.
Inspector General Dan Bahadur Karki has been taking necessary initiatives by prioritising search and rescue, body identification and management following the Bhotekoshi disaster.
CODIS software used for DNA matching
Police have started using the Combined DNA Index System, or CODIS, to match DNA samples collected from recovered bodies with samples from close relatives of missing people.
“After extracting the DNA of the deceased and relatives and entering it into the software, the system performs the matching,” Kafle said.
According to him, CODIS is an international software system. “Once the DNA reports of the deceased and relatives are entered, the system shows whether they match,” he said. “After that, based on the required documents, we recover the identified body and hand it over in accordance with international practices and the law.”
Police have mobilised all relevant personnel to complete the DNA testing as quickly as possible. Personnel have been deployed around the clock without leave to handle the workload.
“Both domestic and foreign personnel are assisting with DNA profiling. Foreign experts have also arrived in Nepal,” Kafle said.
The government has arranged the necessary resources because DNA testing is an expensive and time consuming process. The growing number of recovered bodies, along with shortages of equipment and personnel, has increased the challenges facing the police.
Police say establishing forensic laboratories in all seven provinces could help reduce the pressure currently facing the central facility.
Senior Superintendent of Police Yog Bahadur Pal, chief of the Nepal Police Central Forensic Science Laboratory in Samakhushi, said samples collected from victims and their relatives in the flood affected areas continue to arrive.
“We are safely storing the collected samples and working around the clock on DNA testing while meeting all required testing standards,” he said.
DNA profiling is considered one of the most effective tools for identifying individuals and establishing biological relationships between people.
Three methods used to identify bodies
Along with DNA testing, police are using fingerprint analysis and photographic matching to identify recovered bodies.
Kafle said police have also developed Disaster Victim Identification software to compare photographs of missing people with photographs of recovered bodies.
“We have obtained fingerprints from some bodies. We are technically processing them and searching for possible matches,” he said.
To verify fingerprints, police are obtaining biometric information from systems including the National Identity Card database. The method is considered relatively inexpensive and faster than DNA testing.
Police, though, said fingerprints cannot be obtained from bodies that have no hands or whose remains have severely decomposed.
People’s News Monitoring Service
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