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A total of 77 people including a foreign national have died and 75 people were injured in the recent flash floods in Kavre.

According to the District Police Office, five people are still missing.

The deceased include 33 women, 28 men, nine minor boys and seven minor girls.

Eighteen people including eight women lost their lives in Panauti Municipality while eight women, three men and one child died in Temal Rural Municipality.

Six women, two men, one boy and three girls died in Roshi Rural Municipality, eight men, three women and one child died in Bethanchowk while seven people including three women died in Mandandeupur.

Meanwhile, Assistant Chief District Officer Subas Paudel said that the search for the missing persons is underway while relief support is being provided to the affected families.

The number of people, who lost their lives in floods and landslides in Kavre, has reached 54.

Police Inspector Dinesh Bahadur Kunwar of the District Police Office, Kavre said that 54 people died in the floods and landslides in Temal, Roshi, Panauti and Banepa among other places of Kavre.

Among the deceased, the identities of 38 have been ascertained.

Police said that 337 people have been rescued by a Nepal Army helicopter from BP Highway and other places and 3, 226 by other means till this morning.

Police have arrested four persons for allegedly cutting down a tree of precious Bodhichitta (Buddhachitta) at Roshi Rural Municipality-5, Nagbeli in Kavrepalanchowk district.

The arrestees have been identified as Prabhat Tamang, Shyam Krishna Mainali, Man Bahadur Tamang and Durga Lal Tamang, spokesperson at the District Police Office, Dhulikhel, DSP Raj Kumar Shrestha informed.

The group had cut down a tree of Bodhichitta in the Nagbeli-based garden of Thakurani Tamang on Thursday night with explosives.

Tamang said this year the Bodhichitta grain grown on the particular tree was to be sold at Rs 30 million this year. She had already received an advance for this.

According to her, a group of around 20 people armed with weapons cut the Bodhichitta tree at around 1 am on Thursday.

Mainali and Durga Lal were arrested from Banepa of Kavrepalanchowk on Sunday, while Prabhat was arrested from Banasthali of Kathmandu on Saturday and Man Bahadur was arrested on the same day the tree was cut down, said DSP Shrestha.

According to the police, four socket bombs were planted on the door and courtyard of the house after the tree of Tamang was cut down.

Dhulikhel-based Kalijung Battalion of the Nepal Army had defused the bomb. A search is on for others involved in the incident, police said.

Meanwhile, victim Thakurani lodged a complaint at the District Police Office on Sunday against eight persons, including four arrested. The fruit grown on the tree was looted four years ago. Police suspected that the group that cut trees may have looted the fruit at that time.

The Bodhichita-made garland has special religious and cultural importance in the Tamang community and Tibetan and Chinese society.