Kathmandu, Sep 7: A national day of mourning is being observed on Monday in Nepal in honour of those who lost their lives in the devastating flood that struck the Bhote Koshi River in Rasuwa district on August 26.

A Cabinet meeting held on September 3 decided to observe a national day of mourning on Monday in honour of those who lost their lives in the deadly floods, which occurred 13 days ago.

The national flag was flown at half-mast at government offices across Nepal, as well as at Nepali embassies and diplomatic missions abroad.

According to the Nepal Police, as many as 1,353 bodies of people who died in the floods had been recovered by Sunday evening.

According to the latest details, the recovered bodies include 530 men and 328 women, while 495 bodies were recovered in parts and remain unidentified.

Police said 3,992 people remain out of contact, including 595 foreign nationals.

Police said 1,044 of the recovered bodies have been safely buried, while the identification and management of the remaining bodies are underway.

Meanwhile, Nepali Prime Minister Balendra Shah has urged elderly people affected by the floods not to feel that they are alone, assuring them that the state and government stand firmly with them.

Issuing a message on social media on Monday, Prime Minister Shah said, “You are not alone. The state is with you, and the government is with you.”

In an emotional statement, Prime Minister Shah noted that during the floods, some elderly parents had to flee to higher ground while clutching their grandchildren with trembling hands, without even caring about their own lives.

They were forced to endure such difficult circumstances in the later years of their lives, he said.

“Even legs that could barely move two steps without the support of a walking stick found extraordinary strength at that moment to save their children,” he added.

Security agencies have continued search and rescue operations for people who remain out of contact, particularly at hydropower projects along the Bhote Koshi and Trishuli river corridors.

According to the Independent Power Producers’ Association, Nepal (IPPAN), a representative body of private-sector power developers in Nepal, as many as 919 people employed at 11 hydropower projects remained out of contact as of Sunday evening.

There have been a few successful rescues of people alive from some hydropower projects, including two Nepali nationals from the 60-MW Upper Trishuli 3A project on September 4 and a Chinese national from the 216-MW Upper Trishuli-1 project on September 5.

Tehran, Sep 7: Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Secretary Mohsen Rezaei has said that his country would announce a restricted zone outside the Strait of Hormuz in the coming days and place any ship attempting to transit the area on Tehran’s sanctions list.

In an interview with state-run IRIB TV, which was broadcast Sunday night (local time), Rezaei said that the zone would extend from “the line where the US naval blockade begins to the Strait of Hormuz region and inside the Persian Gulf on the other side (of the strait).”

Ships that enter the zone without coordination with Iran, he added, would face sanctions affecting their insurance coverage and future passage through the waterway.

Rezaei framed the move as part of a broader strategic shift in Iran’s approach to war and diplomacy, aiming at increasing pressure on Washington, reports Xinhua news agency.

The security official stressed that the Strait of Hormuz is completely closed, dismissing the US claim that ships and oil tankers are crossing the waterway as a “lie.”

While acknowledging that some vessels attempt to cross the strait via a route near Oman, often switching off their navigation systems to evade detection, Rezaei said most of those ships “receive blows.”

Yet he added that Iran does not intend to sink them for now due to environmental concerns.

Rezaei further revealed that Iran had test-fired for the first time a domestically developed anti-destroyer missile above a US aircraft carrier 48 hours ago, describing it as a warning that the US naval blockade is vulnerable.

“The special missile created a hell for the Americans, and they fled,” he said.

Rezaei said the Strait of Hormuz would remain closed unless the United States takes practical steps to fulfil its obligations under a peace memorandum of understanding signed between Tehran and Washington in June.

In the coming days, he added, a new international corridor designated by Iran and Oman for passage through the strait would be announced, emphasising that the corridor would be under Iran’s management.

Following US-Israeli strikes on Iran on Feb. 28, Tehran restricted passage through the Strait of Hormuz, while US forces imposed a naval blockade targeting vessels travelling to or from Iranian ports and coastal areas.

Tehran, Sep 6: The navy of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) said Saturday it had targeted three oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz and three US-affiliated vessels elsewhere in retaliation for the US attacks on Iranian tankers earlier in the day.

The three tankers that were struck in the strait were crossing the waterway through the “unauthorized” route, the navy said in a statement published on the IRGC’s official news outlet Sepah News, adding the other three vessels were hit in other regions.

The navy also urged all vessels in the Gulf and near the Strait of Hormuz to refrain from being “deceived” by the US Army and any suspicious movement to transit the waterway through “unauthorized” routes, otherwise they will be targeted, Xinhua news agency reported.

Earlier in the day, Iran’s state-run IRIB news agency reported that three Iranian oil tankers were attacked by the US Army off Iran’s southern coasts.

Following the incident, Ebrahim Zolfaghari, spokesman of Iran’s main military command, Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, warned the United States against continuing its attacks on Iranian vessels as well as the naval blockade against the country.

“If the malice and insecurity against and harassment of Iranian ships, as well as the anti-Iran naval blockade continue, the strikes by the armed forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran against US military vessels in the region will become more severe than before, and there is a possibility of their expansion,” Zolfaghari said in a statement carried by Iranian media.

Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump said Friday that the US military may soon strike Iran’s Pickaxe Mountain — a fortified site near Iran’s Natanz enrichment facility — while trying to downplay the conflict with Iran as “small potatoes.”

“We may hit Pickaxe very soon,” Trump told reporters at the White House, referring to the underground facility where Washington says Iran has moved some of its stockpile of highly enriched uranium.

Meanwhile, Trump tried to downplay the conflict with Iran, arguing that it was not a war. “It’s a military conflict, but it’s very intermittent,” Trump said, though he has repeatedly described the conflict as a “war” while avoiding the term at times.

“I call it a military conflict because it’s small potatoes for us. It’s not a big thing,” Trump claimed.

Following the US-Israeli strikes on Iran on February 28, Tehran restricted passage through the Strait of Hormuz, barring vessels linked to the United States or Israel, while US forces imposed a naval blockade targeting vessels traveling to or from Iranian ports and coastal areas.