After arsonists incinerated the very foundations of the Nepali state, the air still reeked days later of scorched buildings and charred government files.

The Singha Durbar compound in the capital, Kathmandu, was once home to an ornate palace and about 20 government ministries on its verdant grounds. It is now a crime scene, all but destroyed within a few hours of fiery frenzy on Sept. 9. Workers emerged from the wreckage of the prime minister’s office on Monday heaving salvaged documents on their shoulders. Other papers fluttered through the air. A dog stopped to urinate on a pile of demographic reports.

“We don’t know anything, it’s a mess,” said Pashupati Mahat, an under secretary of the Ministry of Energy, Water Resources and Irrigation. The ministry’s entire legal department had gone up in flames.

Down a blackened hallway, past a staircase that ended midstep between the second and third floors, the education minister’s office was dark with soot, one wall punched out by fire. Pens and paper clips sat on the minister’s desk, along with two phones with no dial tone.