BAJHANG: A joint team of security bodies mobilized to search for the 19 people, who had gone missing in a landslide at Thalara Rural Municipality-4 in the district has stopped its works and returned empty-handed.

The search and rescue team having returned without results means there is a slim chance that the missing ones would be found alive, said 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.