Three Indiana residents accused of looting cemetery mausoleum niches that held cremated remains have been taken into custody after authorities linked them to a string of unsettling thefts across the eastern United States.

Investigators are now calling on families to visit or contact the cemeteries where their relatives are laid to rest, warning that more memorial sites may have been targeted.

In Florida, officials say at least 20 related cases have already been documented.

“But detectives believe there could be many more,” who just don’t realize they’ve been victimized yet, the Orange County Sheriff’s Office in Florida wrote in a post on X.

“What a horrible person you are if you decide to steal from the dead,” a sheriff’s office spokesperson said in a video appeal seeking the public’s help in identifying those responsible.

“These three people are going to cemeteries, breaking into deceased people’s niches, and stealing their family heirlooms.”

Within days, Drake Lee Milam, 33, and Angela Garrett, 52, were arrested in Indiana, court records show. And Porsche Bancroft, 32, turned herself in at Florida’s Seminole County Jail.

In court records, Bancroft was identified as the girlfriend of Milam and the daughter of Garrett. Her arraignment is scheduled for Sept. 22 in Sanford, Florida. And a trial has been set for Feb. 8.

Milam and Garrett will be extradited to Florida to face charges, according to the Orange County Sheriff’s Office. But their court documents were not accessible, a representative with the Seminole County Clerk of Court told News Media.

“All three face a variety of charges, including injuring or removing a tomb or monument; disturbing the contents of a grave or tomb; and grand theft over $20,000,” according to a spokesperson for the Orange County Sheriff’s Office in Florida.

Cross-country heist

A slew of mausoleum surveillance videos appear to show the trio breaking into glass-front niches, where urns of cremated remains and mementos are displayed, then removing items and strolling out, according to authorities.

“They’ve been everywhere from Oklahoma City to Minnesota to Texas [and] here in Florida,” the Orange County Sheriff’s Office spokesman said. “They visited Georgia, Iowa, North Carolina, even so far northeast as to Buffalo, New York.”

The accused grave robbers allegedly traveled through Illinois and New Jersey, too, the sheriff’s office said in an email to News Media.

“Imagine losing your wife or husband and placing their wedding ring, and yours, in the niche – only to have them stolen by thieves looking for an easy payday,” the agency spokesman said. “This will not stand. Not in Florida.”

Florida police reports list a variety of items missing from cemeteries holding great sentimental and monetary value:

A husband reported his late wife’s niche as missing their his-and-hers gold wedding rings and her Class of 1992 ring from Miami Southridge Senior High School. It was silver with a blue stone.

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A wife reported as missing a ring given to her late husband for his 25th anniversary of working for The Walt Disney Co.

A father reported the theft of his daughter’s 1972 class ring with a blue stone.

A wife reported the theft of a 22-inch gold chain with a gold anchor from her late husband’s niche. It had been his wish to be interred with the jewelry, she told police.

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A family reported missing jewelry they’d left with the remains of a beloved wife and mother, including a gold wedding band, two gold earrings, two gold rings and a gold bracelet.

A husband reported the theft of his wife’s platinum-and-diamond wedding ring and a diamond solitaire he’d given her for their engagement.

The wife of the late Charles Taaffe, former offensive coordinator for the University of Central Florida football team, reported his two gold championship rings had been taken from where his remains were interred.

The sheriff’s office is urging people nationwide to check their loved ones’ burial sites to be sure “cherished items” are still there.

In Florida, valuables worth a total of $35,000 have been discovered as being swiped from cemeteries in Orange, Seminole and Hillsborough counties, the spokesperson said.

“But the dollar amount is not what’s important,” a sheriff’s office spokesperson told News Media in an email.

“Having a loved one’s final resting place disturbed and cherished family heirlooms taken is deeply painful, and we recognize that no arrest can undo what these families have experienced.”

Detectives are working to identify more victims.

“If you have a family member resting at a cemetery, take a moment to check their niche and make sure the items you placed with them are still there,” the sheriff’s office wrote on X.

“And if you have information about this case or believe you may be a victim, please contact Central Florida Crimeline at 800-423-TIPS (8477).”

News Media attempted to contact all three defendants. Bancroft said her attorney would provide a statement but it was not received before publication. Garrett and Milam did not respond before publication.

It’s time to stop pushing this.

Put the bullpen sessions on hold.

Skip the simulated games, too.

Shohei Ohtani’s sore left knee and tender right biceps are sending him a clear message, and at this point, the Los Angeles Dodgers superstar needs to pay attention.

The idea of Ohtani pitching again this season has to be set aside.

Ohtani returning to the mound only makes sense if he can be a difference-maker as a pitcher, and what are the chances of that happening now that he’s been scratched from his tentatively scheduled one-inning start on Sunday in Detroit?

As it was, Ohtani already was in a time crunch to prepare himself to be a full-fledged starter by October, manager Dave Roberts admitting that building him up to make a five-inning start in the playoffs would be “aggressive.”

Ohtani is more than a designated hitter, more than a pitcher, and even more than a two-way player.

He’s a game-changer, and the only place in which he can be that for the Dodgers in October is in the batter’s box.

In that case, what’s the point of him pitching, other than that he wants to?

The Dodgers traded for Tarik Skubal so they wouldn’t have to count on Ohtani to pitch, and now that Skubal is here, they might as well take advantage of that and focus Ohtani’s attention to the area in which he could help them most.

Which is on offense.

With Skubal, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow as their other starting pitching options, the Dodgers still have a championship-caliber rotation without Ohtani.

What they don’t have at the moment is a World Series offense.

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“I gotta think about what I can do to spur this offense,” Roberts told reporters in Detroit. “I don’t know right now as I sit here. These are our guys that have performed. I believe in them. But I don’t know the answer, as far as making changes and things like that, whether it’s lineup construction.”

The simplest solution would be to get Ohtani back on track.

The Dodgers don’t score when he’s not hitting, a point reinforced on their current roadtrip. With Ohtani batting just .182 on their two-city tour, they have scored a combined 11 runs in five games, of which they have won only one.

“Obviously, where we’re at right now with the pitching, the starting pitching certainly being a strength, his value offensively is hugely important, and so we can’t compromise that in any fashion,” Roberts said. “So, if throwing potentially cuts into that, that’s not worth the squeeze.”

But the Dodgers are extremely mindful of what Ohtani wants, which is understandable considering his oversized economic impact on the franchise. That could explain why Roberts downplayed the degree to which Ohtani’s pregame work as a pitcher was responsible for his offensive downturn.

“Honestly,” Roberts said, “I just think that for me, I think the pitch selection hasn’t been good.”

Roberts could be right.

But what if he’s not?

Ohtani has acknowledged that his knee problems have limited his speed on the basepaths, making it harder for him to properly judge whether he can stretch a single into a double or a double into a triple.

Is it really worth jeopardizing the offensive upside of Ohtani in exchange for having him available to pitch an inning or two as an opener once every postseason series?

Coincidentally or not, Ohtani stopped hitting when he started ramping up as a pitcher. He threw his first bullpen session in three weeks on Aug. 14, and from that point on, he’s batting just .214 with three homers in 14 games.

Compare that to the 31 games that Ohtani played between that bullpen session and his last start as a pitcher. In that period, he batted .301 and homered nine times.

The story of Ohtani’s career is one of defiance. Ohtani became a two-way player in the Japanese league when the consensus was that it was impractical. He continued to play both ways in the major leagues when others said it was impossible.

But Ohtani shouldn’t mistake the situation he is in now with the kind of skepticism he encountered in previous stages of his career. This isn’t about whether he’s capable of hitting and pitching at the same time — he can, and he will have a chance to resume pitching next season.

This is about doing what’s best for him and his team in the limited time that remains this season. This is about him looking at the Dodgers’ roster and figuring out what will be required of him in October and what won’t.

Roger Federer was overcome with emotion as he took his place in the International Tennis Hall of Fame, breaking down after a heartfelt introduction from his wife, Mirka.

The Swiss tennis icon became eligible for the prestigious honour this year, four years on from his retirement. His haul of 20 men’s Grand Slam singles titles remains a benchmark surpassed or matched only by his defining rivals, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic.

Federer, 45, was never shy about showing emotion during his glittering playing career, and the moment proved no different in Newport, Rhode Island. As his extraordinary legacy was formally enshrined among the sport’s greats, he struggled at times to get his words out through tears.

Mirka, whom Federer first met at the 2000 Sydney Olympics when she was an emerging tennis talent herself, was selected by her husband to welcome him to the stage. She began with a warm joke, recalling that she had been the “older woman” at 21 while Federer was just 18.

“When we met, he had exactly zero ATP titles. Zero,” Mirka said. “Looking back, I suppose I was there for all 103 that followed. We shared quite the journey.”

Although Mirka was a constant presence on the tour and witness to the titanic effort her husband put into becoming one of the greatest of all time, she added that ‘tennis was never what impressed me the most.’

‘The man behind it all is even more remarkable,’ she continued. ‘He’s the most devoted father that our four children could ever ask for.

‘When I found out we were expecting twins for the first time, I told Roger that my traveling days were probably over. Without missing a beat, he said, “I won’t play anymore”. He wasn’t being remanded. He meant it. That’s who Roger is. His family comes first.

‘Fortunately, we found another solution, and that solution involved babies, strollers, toys, books, and eventually two sets of twins traveling all over the world with us. The tennis tour has always been our home. Our children Myla, Charlene, Leo, and Lenny know him as Papa. The Papa who read bedtime stories, played games with them, who ran their bath, who made them laugh, no matter how busy he was. Whether he won or lost, he always made time for them.

‘I know him always as the kind husband, funny, thoughtful, and endlessly supportive. His parents know him as a loving son. His sister knows him as a wonderful brother. And his friends know him as someone who always has time for them, no matter how busy his life becomes.’

There was barely a dry eye in the house – with Federer’s parents both left in tears – as he stepped onto the stage for his own address.

But Federer was the most overcome as he kissed his wife and accepted the trophy commemorating his induction.

The eight-time Wimbledon champion broke down at a number of different points in his speech, including paying tribute to his mentor, six-time Grand Slam champion Stefan Edberg, and his parents Robert and Lynette.

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‘It’s not the first (time),’ he joked as he attempted to pull himself together after calling Edberg his ‘childhood hero’. ‘These are happy tears’.

The tears flowed as Federer paid tribute to his longest-serving coach Severin Luthi, saying that he ‘kept (him) motivated when (he) needed motivating, and protected (him) when (he) needed protecting.’

‘We’ll get through this,’ he said as the crowd attempting to cheer him on after he broke off. ‘Promise. Until the sun rises!’

As tears streamed down his face while paying tribute to how Martina Navratilova had inspired Mirka to start playing tennis, Federer joked that he needed ‘tissues and sunglasses.’

‘I need everything to protect me,’ before saying: ‘Oh God. Oh my God. I’m going to do the Mirka bit. This is such a mess.’

‘As you know, Mirka is my wife, which is the greatest understatement I can make,’ he began. ‘She’s also been my coach, my hitting partner before matches, and my reality check, also my stylist. I definitely needed one at the time.

‘Mirka is the person who showed me how to get more focused about tennis and take joy in everything else. A wonderful mother to our four kids. She and I grab each other’s hands and we run through walls. So she’s all of these things, and that’s my Hall of Fame.’

When able to control his sobbing, the living legend interspersed his learnings from his storied career with witty quips, including the note that the over ‘5,000 headbands’ he had spotted during his career were ‘more than Bjorn Borg and John McEnroe combined’.

But most memorable was his message to players on the tour and future stars, where he encouraged them give back to communities by ‘sharing their passion’, and pushing the game to new heights.

‘We all leave the court eventually, but the sport keeps evolving, and as the pace of professional tennis speeds up, as the sport becomes even more global, I so hope it will keep some of that amateur spirit, keep the camaraderie among the players,’ he said.

‘I hope the players will stay young at heart and stay true to their authentic selves, and always remember: never stop asking questions or taking risks, do things with the game we’ve never seen before. Keep pushing this sport we love to the next level, and keep getting better, better, and better.’

An Asheville pastor who says he was connected to gangs in his youth told News Media that local leaders brushed aside his calls for a youth gang-prevention program for nearly a decade — long before a recent surge of violence unsettled the North Carolina tourist destination.

Dr. Ronald Gates said he first presented the idea to Asheville officials in 2016, pressing the city to fund early intervention efforts for children he fears could be drawn into dangerous groups, cycles of retaliation and escalating violence.

The debate has grown more urgent after a series of retaliatory shootings killed two people and injured seven others. Asheville officials have not labeled the incidents as gang-related, instead characterizing the violence as retaliation involving groups of friends.

Gates argues that description overlooks the deeper threat facing the community.

“They did not want to actually acknowledge that it was gang activity,” Gates told News Media. “They wanted to make sure that they tried to whitewash the narrative as they’re saying that these are just retaliations between individuals.”

Gates is the senior pastor of Greater Works Church of God in Christ. He also serves as a Buncombe County Sheriff’s Office chaplain and describes himself as a community liaison who works with local law enforcement. His work in those roles has heightened his concern about young people drawn to violence by money, territory or a need for belonging.

His proposal centers on Gang Free, a Los Angeles-based program intended to help students in grades four through six understand how gangs recruit children and the consequences of becoming involved.

Gates learned about the program during a 2016 trip to California and returned determined to bring a similar effort to Asheville before youth violence became more entrenched.

“I said, ‘Man, I’ve got to bring this back to Asheville, North Carolina,’” he recalled.

Over the past decade, Gates said, he has presented the proposal to mayors, city and county managers, police chiefs and sheriff’s officials, urging them to give it a one-year trial.

He questioned why the city had not invested in the program, even temporarily, to see whether it could work locally.

The program, Gates explained, would teach children how gangs operate, including their signs and colors, and explain how older members can use younger people to move drugs, carry weapons or carry out other crimes.

But education alone is not enough, he argued. A prevention model must also provide young people an alternative to the money and status that can make gangs attractive.

“These young men want to help provide for their single mom or their family,” Gates said. “Any money that they can hustle up, they feel like they’re doing something or doing their part.”

Under his proposal, law enforcement officers, mentors and local business owners would work directly with children in their neighborhoods. Along with gang-prevention lessons, the program would provide educational help, mentorship and exposure to entrepreneurship.

Local businesses could show students how they operate and offer a path to earning money legally, Gates said, while the city could help fund stipends or similar opportunities.

“Now they’re learning how to make honest money, business money, capital, instead of putting their life on the line,” he said.

Gates also has personal reason to believe early intervention can matter.

Growing up in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Gates had gang ties and was loosely associated with the Vice Lords. He credited his father, older brother and sports with keeping him from becoming more deeply involved.

“I thank God that someone intervened,” Gates said.

That experience shaped his belief that prevention has to begin before children become immersed in street life. Young people without steady father figures or mentors can look to older gang members for guidance and protection, he said, creating an opening for those figures to pressure them into dangerous acts while avoiding the harshest consequences themselves.

“If they would have had the opportunity, a different path, a different choice … could they still be here today?” Gates said, referring to young people caught up in the recent violence.

Gates recalled being told in 2016 that Asheville did not have the kind of gang activity that would warrant the program. He warned at the time that city leaders needed to get ahead of the problem rather than wait for violence to escalate.

“I said, ‘Give it two years,’” Gates said. “Two years to the year.”

State data shows Asheville reported 42% more violent crimes in 2024 than in 2016, even as its overall crime index fell 8%. The increase was driven largely by aggravated assaults, which rose from 335 to 558, while reported robberies declined. Violent crime peaked in 2022 and fell for two consecutive years, though the 2024 total remained above the city’s 2016 level.

News Media has contacted Asheville officials for comment on Gates’ claim that he repeatedly presented the prevention program to city leaders beginning in 2016, whether the city reviewed it and why it was not adopted.

Gates stressed that he was not arguing every violent dispute in Asheville is gang-related. But he said the city should not wait for a formal gang label before acting when young people are caught in cycles of retaliation.

“You have personal disputes,” Gates said. “But then the thrust behind it, the motivation behind it is because, ‘Look here, you spilled some blood. I’m going to spill some blood also.’ And that’s what it has come to.”

For city leaders, the question is not just how a crime is labeled, Gates argued, but whether young people have enough opportunities to avoid the path that can lead to prison or death.

That means practical support long before a shooting, arrest or funeral.

“The prevention, it works if you put it out there,” he said.

His message to anyone considering retaliation is simple: Speak with an older relative, a business owner or another trusted adult before making a choice that could change or end a life.

“Is it even worth retaliating?” Gates said. “Is it worth losing my life or going to prison for the rest of my life?”

“Let’s use common sense,” he added. “Count up the real costs.”

Tenant complaints in New York City have jumped 25% this year from the same period last year, fueling criticism of socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s aggressive housing agenda and its mounting pressure on landlords and private property owners.

So far this year, renters have filed 573,656 complaints through 311 across the five boroughs, up from 459,519 recorded at this point in 2025, according to a Post analysis of city service requests.

The increase follows repeated calls from the Mamdani administration urging tenants who feel they have been “ripped off” to report housing problems, including minor issues. Some landlords told The Post that renters are now lodging complaints with the city before contacting building owners or managers to request repairs.

“The city put us in a situation where they’re just slowly beating us to death and blaming us,” said Lincoln Eccles, who owns a 15-unit building in Crown Heights. “The apparatus of the government is geared to squeeze us.”

In the past week alone, Mamdani’s 311 push sent 67 calls about clogged toilets to the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, the city agency that handles tenant complaints — a 500% increase from the same period last year.

“All of this tenant organizing is part of a long term project to take wealth away from people and redistribute it,” said Stu Smith, an investigative analyst with the Manhattan Institute. “They’re figuring out what pressure points they can act on to get their way.”

Complaints in Brooklyn — home to the “Commie Corridor,” a stretch of heavily Mamdani-supporting neighborhoods such as Bed-Stuy, Bushwick, Williamsburg and Greenpoint — are rising at the quickest pace.

So far this year, Brooklynites logged 169,675 complaints compared to 128,337 at the same time last year — 32% more than the same span in 2025, data show.

Queens, where the corridor extends into places such as “The People’s Republic of Astoria,” also saw complaints rise faster than the city-wide average, ticking up 29% year-over-year, the numbers show.

The corridor has been at the heart of City Hall’s efforts to galvanize renters to join forces against landlords, who are anathema to the communist view that private property should be collectively owned.

“Call 311,” Mamdani’s radical tenant advocate, Cea Weaver, who once declared property ownership a “weapon of white supremacy,” urged New Yorkers in February. “City Hall’s door is open,” she said, bragging that the city was going to get “bold and creative” in an interview with In These Times.

Weaver, who once said “if you don’t believe in the government’s sacred right to seize private property, it’s over,” also boasted that HPD was beefing up its staffing.

“We’re expanding headcount to be able to do more housing code inspections and more targeted enforcement,” she said in July during a briefing about the city’s “rental ripoffs” hearings.

In April, Hizzoner dressed up as an HPD inspector for a social media post that bragged about finding six violations, some as trivial as missing info taped to the building entrance and boasted “no issue is too small.”

And it worked.

That week, there were 17,768 complaints filed — up 63% from the same week in 2025 when there were 10,877 tenant calls. In Brooklyn, calls that week went from 3,223 in 2025 to 5,499 in 2026 – a 70% increase, the data show.

“They’re calling HPD non-stop day and night,” vented property owner Yossi Azour, who’s facing off against the Weaver-founded Crown Heights Tenants Union at his building on Hawthorne Street.

“They’re playing the innocent victim and causing people to lose their property and suffer.”

“It’s a disaster,” he added, saying that he’d never seen this in 30 years of owning property. “That Mamdani is saying landlords are bad and housing should be free, it gives them headwind.”

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Some of the more head-scratching complaints have included tenants calling 311 to whine about having no heat in the summer, and a renter griping about the color of the paint on the wall, landlords have told The Post.

In May, Mamdani unveiled his “block by block” housing plan, which increased HPD’s budget by $2 billion.

The nonprofit NYS Tenant Bloc, which Weaver led until joining the Mamdani administration this year, admitted taking landlords to court over repairs was part of the plan to seize housing.

“If landlords can’t maintain their buildings, tenants will,” the NYS Tenant Block bragged in June. “The Mayor’s Housing Plan directs $2.2 billion to taking housing off their hands.”

When a tenant calls 311, the complaint goes to HPD, who calls the landlord. If that doesn’t resolve the issue, the agency sends an inspector to the apartment, who can issue a violation.

If a landlord doesn’t fix an HPD violation, it remains open, giving the city agency the power to go to court, and in the most extreme cases, when there are multiple serious, persistent building-wide violations, take steps to transfer management and ownership.

This week, Mamdani announced he was fast-tracking the court process.

“People wait weeks, if not months, for a case to be heard,” he told reporters. “Today we take a critical step towards ending that.”

Gotham landlords told The Post tenants are abusing the complaint system to live rent-free — and push them out.

“The tactic is to make these complaints. Make it seem like there is no interest in fixing the issue,” said Eccles.

Mamdani’s controversial Office of Mass Engagement has even gone canvassing with the Democratic Socialists of America to encourage tenants to “band together” against landlords, knocking on doors in Flatbush just last week. 

“I’ve totally seen what I would describe as a weaponization of 311 complaints,” Luis Altamiranda, Esther consulting group president, who owns properties in Washington Heights. “It existed before Mamdani, but it’s gotten by far exponentialized since he’s taken office.“

“What I see a lot of is you have tenants that have massive amount of arrears, and then they use the 311 complaints to create this sort of narrative that the landlord’s not doing his job.”

“The landlords are being targeted,” said East Village landlord Christine Renzi, who owns 11 apartment buildings once owned by her father. “My father was never targeted like this. We used to get a lot of respect for being a landlord.”

“I actually have a tenant that feels that he does not have to pay his rent because of Mamdani. They feel like they are absolutely entitled to have a free ride,” she said.

“We even had one tenant who called me and asked why she was being charged rent. She thought that’s what the rent freeze meant,” said Natalie Bonnano, 47, of Staten Island who, with her sister, owns 300 properties in Brooklyn and Staten Island.

Frivolous and repeated false complaints hurt tenants “with real issues,” said Ann Korchak, board president of Small Property Owners of New York.

“A fair and effective housing enforcement system should ensure that property owners are given reasonable opportunity to correct legitimate violations and weed out bogus tenant complaints. There also must be consequences for tenants who create the violations in the apartments, or report false complaints.”

Mamdani did not return a request for comment.

Dramatic newly surfaced footage captures the moment hikers saw a massive glacier give way in the Himalayas, setting off the flash floods and mudslides that later tore through parts of Nepal and Tibet.

The clip, recorded by a Chinese tour guide in Tibet, shows enormous slabs of ice shearing from a ridge on Langtang Lirung, a peak on the Nepali side of the border.

Witnesses said they heard a thunderous crack moments before ice, rock and debris crashed into the valley, throwing up a vast plume of dust that rose over the mountainside.

The collapse set off a landslide that blocked the valley and created a lake, before water and debris burst through the mountain river system and rushed toward the Gyirong border crossing.

A second video shows debris hurtling down the slope in the immediate aftermath, capturing the early moments of a disaster that would go on to devastate communities downstream.

The footage, obtained and verified by The New York Times, provides one of the clearest views yet of the August 26 glacier collapse.

The death toll from the disaster has now risen to 676, with nearly 3,000 people still missing across Nepal and Tibet.

This includes more than 500 foreign tourists, 33 of whom are known to be British. Many foreign nationals are feared to have been in the vicinity of Rasuwagadhi, taking holy pilgrimages or embarking on trekking expeditions.

Search and rescue operations resumed on Saturday after being temporarily suspended because of rain and fog, with helicopters returning to the worst-hit areas as weather conditions improved.

A UK rapid deployment team arrived in Nepal on Saturday to support British nationals and their families.

Authorities are also monitoring two lakes upstream of the flood zone, with officials warning that the risk of further flooding will remain until both have fully drained.

Satellite images taken since the ‘tsunami from the sky’ swept through remote areas of the country and neighbouring Tibet depict entire settlements simply disappearing. 

Rasuwagadhi border crossing, located at one end of Friendship Bridge on the border between Nepal and Tibet, was finally reached by a team of rescuers on Friday and was found to have been annihilated. 

Last night, fresh satellite images brought home the scale of the damage, showing entire settlements have completely vanished, washed away by the raging torrent of mud and water which descended along the Trishuli River on Wednesday.

The Gyirong region crossing, a crucial landmark for pilgrims seeking access to the Langtang valley and tourists out trekking, saw some of the first, and most distressing, footage of the flood to be captured.

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CCTV footage saw people fleeing before the water and mud completely engulfed the large building.

The crossing has now gone, along with its large rear car park, Friendship Bridge and all associated buildings – just the river and surrounding greenery remain, as if it was never there.

A Chinese rescue team was the first to reach the obliterated landscape at the crossing yesterday, and said they found ‘nothing but ruins’.

State media reported that the Chinese team of 21 rescuers and a search-and-rescue dog arrived at Rasuwagadhi yesterday.

‘There was no road … it was all virgin forest and sheer cliffs,’ rescue worker Zou Mingqi said. At the complex, ‘as far as the eye could ⁠see, there was nothing but ruins’.

The team had to use ropes to cross forests and valleys to reach the area, thought to be among the worst affected.

The crossing is one site where many of the missing tourists are feared to have been. British care agency boss Leena Bector, 53, from Slough, Berkshire, was last heard from just an hour away from the site.

Other images show bridges crossing the Trishuli river wiped out, along with the small settlements and industries on either side.

Some depict the village of Syapru Besi, with prior photos suggesting a vibrant, sprawling community nestled around a fork in the river.

Images taken after the flood had rampaged through the area show much of the village washed away.

Just a fraction of the houses were spared, mostly those nestled further away from the river along a narrow road rising into the mountains.

A bed of mud and silt can be seen left behind, showing how far beyond its usual banks the torrent flowed.

A bridge, which appears to be located just to the south of the village, has also completely been destroyed.

And construction sites, camping areas and footbridges have all similarly been affected. Some of those set back from the river have survived, but the landscape around them has not, with huge areas of trees and forest disappearing compared to images taken previously.