Gopal Sharma

Nepal Tara Air Crash: 14 Bodies Recovered; Rescue Operations Continue

The aircraft had four Indians, two Germans and 16 Nepalis aboard.

Kathmandu: Rescue workers in Nepal on Monday recovered 14 bodies as they scoured a remote Himalayan mountainside scattered with the wreckage of a small plane that crashed with 22 aboard, with officials saying the chance of finding survivors was slim.

Operated by privately owned Tara Air, the aircraft went down during cloudy weather on Sunday and was spotted by Nepal’s army earlier on Monday after search operations that were halted overnight were resumed.

“There is very little chance to find survivors,” said Deo Chandra Lal Karna, a spokesman for the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal.

Tek Raj Sitaula, a spokesman for the Tribhuvan International Airport in Nepal’s capital Kathmandu, said bodies of 14 people had been found so far by rescue teams.

“The search for others is continuing,” Sitaula told Reuters.

The De Havilland Canada DHC-6-300 Twin Otter aircraft took off from the tourist town of Pokhara, 125 km (80 miles) west of Kathmandu, on Sunday morning.

The destination was Jomsom, a popular tourist and pilgrimage site that lies about 80 km (50 miles) northwest of Pokhara – usually a 20-minute flight.

But the aircraft – with four Indians, two Germans and 16 Nepalis aboard – lost contact with the Pokhara control tower five minutes before it was due to land, airlines officials said.

The crash site is in the region where Mount Dhaulagiri, the world’s seventh highest peak at 8,167 metres (26,795 feet) is located, in proximity to Nepal’s borders with China.

Soldiers from Nepal’s army and other rescue workers were operating in difficult mountainous terrain at an altitude of around 14,500 feet with a heavy cloud cover, officials said.

Netra Prasad Sharma, the most senior bureaucrat in the Mustang district, where the crash took place, said weather conditions remained challenging.

“There is very thick cloud in the area,” he told Reuters by phone. “The search for bodies is going on.”

Flight-tracking website Flightradar24 said the aircraft, with registration number 9N-AET, made its first flight in April 1979.

Nepal, home to eight of the world’s 14 highest mountains, including Everest, has a record of air accidents. Its weather can change suddenly and airstrips are typically located in mountainous areas that are hard to reach.

In early 2018, an US-Bangla Airlines flight from Dhaka to Kathmandu crashed on landing and caught fire, killing 51 of the 71 people on board.

(Reuters)

Nepal Families Face Hunger, Skip Meals as Pandemic Hits Remittances

More than 56% of Nepal’s households receive remittances, a vital lifeline for families that have no other source of income.

Kathmandu: Shiba Kala Limbu grimaced as she recalled how she went hungry in order to feed her five-year-old daughter after the coronavirus pandemic cost her husband his job as a mason in the Gulf state of Qatar.

The 25-year-old said she had no money for rent after the payments from her husband, Ram Kumar, stopped.

“It is painful,” she said, as she peeled potatoes in a dimly lit kitchen that doubles as her bedroom in the Baniyatar locality of the Nepali capital.

“I skipped several evening meals to save whatever little food I had for my daughter.”

The spread of the respiratory disease caused by the virus has choked economies worldwide and pitched millions of migrant workers out of jobs, leaving them unable to send money home.

More than 56% of Nepal’s estimated 5.4 million households receive remittances that are a vital lifeline for families that have no other source of income, official figures show.

Remittances totalled $8.1 billion last year, or more than a quarter of Nepal‘s gross domestic product, but are likely to drop 14% in 2020 because of the global recession caused by the virus, as well as a fall in oil prices, the World Bank says. Millions of Nepali migrants work in the oil-rich Gulf countries and Malaysia.

Remittances are crucial for lower-middle-class families that have moved to city centres and rely on them to pay for rent, groceries, school fees and utilities, said analyst Ganesh Gurung.

“Without remittances, these families will get poorer and crimes like human trafficking and prostitution could rise,” said Gurung, an expert on migrant issues at the Nepal Institute of Development Studies think tank.

Limbu, the housewife, used to receive up to 20,000 Nepali rupees ($165) every month before the pandemic.

But in the last six months she has received only 40,000 Nepali rupees from her husband, most of it borrowed from his friends.

“That’s all he has managed to send this year,” she said. “I used some of it to pay for the rent and the rest to buy groceries.”

In the southwestern town of Gajedah, Radha Marasini said her husband, Indra Mani, lost his job as a security guard at a textile factory in India’s northern city of Ludhiana after the outbreak.

Shiba Kala Limbu ties up her five-year-old daughter Masim Limbu’s hair in Kathmandu, Nepal June 25, 2020. Photo: REUTERS/Navesh Chitrakar

As her income dried up, the 43-year-old had no option but to turn to a local lender and pay crippling interest rates to ensure she and her 15-year-old son can survive.

“If the coronavirus situation does not improve, we’ll have to eat only one meal a day,” Marasini said.

The virus has caused 13,248 infections and 29 deaths in Nepal.

Some migrants, like Limbu’s husband Ram Kumar, are staying overseas despite the loss of their jobs, in hopes the situation will improve and they can resume work.

“It is traumatic to be away from the family,” Kumar said from Qatar, which plans a limited re-opening of restaurants, beaches and parks from July 1.

“If there was any hope for finding a job in Nepal, I would go.”

(Reuters)

Death Toll From Nepal Flash Floods Rises to 47, Dozens Missing, Injured

Television channels showed roofs of houses submerged in floodwaters in the southern plains and people wading through chest-deep water with their belongings on their heads.

Kathmandu: The death toll in Nepal from flash floods and landslides in the past three days rose to 47 on Sunday, with dozens missing and injured, the government said.

Incessant monsoon rains have pounded many areas in mostly mountainous Nepal since Thursday, submerging large swathes of land, inundating homes, and destroying bridges and roads across the country.

A home ministry statement said 47 people had been confirmed dead and 28 injured. There are 29 missing.

Television channels showed roofs of houses submerged in floodwaters in the southern plains and people wading through chest-deep water with their belongings on their heads.

Officials said in some areas rains had eased but some rivers in the eastern part of the country were still above flood level. Authorities asked residents to remain alert.

The Kosi River, which flows into the eastern Indian state of Bihar, was among those that had risen above the flood level.

Nepal police official Ishwari Dahal said all 56 sluice gates of the Kosi barrage on the Nepal-India border had been opened last night for six hours to drain out 371,000 cusecs of water, the highest accumulation in 15 years. A cusec is a measurement of flow, equivalent to one cubic foot per second.

“Its water level has gone down now,” Dahal told Reuters from the barrage site in southeast Nepal.

The Kosi has been a serious concern for both India and Nepal since it broke its banks in 2008 and changed course, submerging swathes of land and affecting more than 2 million people in India’s Bihar state. About 500 people died in that disaster.

(Reuters)

Nepal Restores $2.5 billion Hydropower Plant Contract to Chinese Firm Gezhouba Group

The deal with the Gezhouba Group to build the Budhi Gandaki hydroelectric project was scrapped last year by the previous government, citing lapses in the award process.

Kathmandu: Nepal’s new government has reversed its predecessor’s decision and has asked China Gezhouba Group Corporation to build the nation’s biggest hydropower plant, an official said on Sunday, as it seeks to woo Chinese investment in its ailing infrastructure.

The $2.5 billion deal with the Gezhouba Group to build the Budhi Gandaki hydroelectric project was scrapped last year by the previous government, citing lapses in the award process. State-run Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) was to have built it.

But Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli, seen as China-friendly, pledged to revert the project to the Chinese company if he was elected to power in last year’s elections. Oli became prime minister in February after his Nepal Communist Party scored a landslide poll victory.

“Yes, the Budhi Gandaki has been given back to the Gezhouba Group,” said Roshan Khadka, an aide to Energy Minister Barsa Man Pun. “It is … restoring the project to the Chinese company,” Khadka told Reuters. He did not give further details of the decision taken by the cabinet on Friday night.

China and India are both jostling for influence in Nepal by providing aid and investment in infrastructure projects.

Officials said a formal construction deal will be signed on the hydropower project after the government had negotiated the project modalities with the Chinese company. No date for this was given.

Nepal’s rivers, cascading from the snow-capped Himalayas, have vast, untapped potential forhydropower generation, but lack of funds has made Nepal lean on neighbour India to meet annual power demand of 1,400 megawatts (MW).

The 1,200 MW plant on Budhi Gandaki river, about 50 km (32 miles) west of Kathmandu, is meant to address acute power shortages that has marred economic growth in one of the poorest countries in the world.

Critics say the project should have been open for international bidding instead of being entrusted to the Chinese company.

Officials of the Chinese company were not immediately available for comment.

Nepal wants the Budhi Gandaki project to be part of the Belt and Road initiative (BRI), President Xi Jinping’s landmark scheme to connect China to the rest of Asia and beyond, to which it signed up last year.

(Reuters)

Bangladesh Plane Carrying 71 People Crashes in Nepal; At Least 50 Dead

Seventeen people on board have been rescued.

Wreckage of an airplane is pictured as rescue workers operate at Kathmandu airport, Nepal March 12, 2018. Credit: Reuters/Navesh Chitrakar

Kathmandu: A Bangladeshi aircraft carrying 67 passengers and four crew crashed on Monday while coming in to land at the airport in the Nepali capital, Kathmandu, an airport official said, adding that 17 people on board had been rescued. The army spokesperson said that at least 50 people were killed.

The state of the other people on the flight from the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka, operated by US-Bangla Airlines, was not clear, airport spokesman Birendra Prasad Shrestha said.

“We are trying to bring the fire under control. Details are awaited,” he said, adding that the airport had been shut down and all other flights diverted.

“We’re now concentrating on evacuating the passengers.”

Television images showed smoke rising from the crash site.

People stand as smoke rises following the crash of a Bangladeshi aircraft at Kathmandu airport, Nepal March 12, 2018 in this picture grab obtained from social media video. Credit: NITIN KEYAL/via Reuters

Mountainous Nepal is notorious for air accidents. Small aircraft often run into trouble at provincial airstrips.

A Thai Airways flight from Bangkok crashed while trying to land in Kathmandu in 1992 killing all on board.

US-Bangla Airlines is a unit of the US-Bangla Group, a US Bangladeshi joint venture company.

The Bangladeshi carrier launched operations in July 2014 and operates Bombardier Inc and Boeing aircraft.

(Reuters)

Voting for New Parliament Begins in Nepal, Army Says Rogue Maoists Behind Blasts

More than a decade after the end of a civil war between Maoist peasant guerrillas, Nepal is hoping this election will complete its long journey from a monarchy to becoming a federal republic.

A man cast his vote on a ballot box during the parliamentary and provincial elections at Chautara in Sindhupalchok District November 26, 2017. Credit: Reuters/Navesh Chitrakar

Kathmandu: Nepalis began voting for a new parliament on Sunday with the army on alert as a series of small blasts blamed on a rogue Maoist group reminded the Himalayan nation of the violence and instability it is hoping to leave behind.

More than a decade after the end of a civil war between Maoist peasant guerrillas, Nepal is hoping this election – the first parliamentary polls since 1999 – will complete its long journey from a monarchy to becoming a federal republic.

A second phase of the election will take place on December 7, and the election commission has said that the final results probably won’t be known for several days because of the cumbersome counting procedures.

A Maoist splinter group was behind a series of small blasts in the run up to the polls, and security forces have defused around 30 improvised explosive devices since Friday, army spokesman Nain Raj Dahal said.

Suresh Balsami was the first voter at Kagatigaun polling centre near the capital Kathmandu.

“I voted for peace, development and prosperity of the country,” said the 32 year old bus driver as other voters began to trickle in.

Nepal voted in 2008 and 2013 for a Constituent Assembly, which doubled as parliament, to write a post-monarchy charter that plotted the course to becoming a federal republic.

More than 15 million eligible voters will pick a 275-member legislature, the first under a new constitution agreed after years of wrangling.

Simultaneously, voters will choose representatives to seven provincial assemblies for the first time since Nepal abolished the monarchy in 2008.

The centrist Nepali Congress party, considered a pro-India group, has formed a loose electoral alliance with the Madhesi parties from the country’s southern plains bordering India and former royalists.

Facing the alliance is a tight-knit left coalition between the former Maoist rebels and the main opposition Communist UML party, perceived to be closer to China.

Wedged between India and China, Nepal needs to balance ties, but the outcome of the election could determine which of the Asian giants gets the upper hand in the battle for influence in the buffer state.

Both are looking to benefit from Nepal‘s potential as a source of hydropower.

Home to Mount Everest, and one of the poorest countries in the world, Nepal depends on tourism and aid. More than one-fifth of its 28 million people survive on less than $1.90 a day, and parts of the country are still recovering from a devastating earthquake that killed 9,000 people in 2015.

(Reuters)

Nepal: At Least 31 Killed as Bus Plunges Into River

Road accidents are common in mostly mountainous Nepal, where police say about 1,800 people die in crashes every year.

Representative image. Credit: Reuters

Kathmandu: A bus carrying passengers returning from a Hindu festival to the Nepali capital of Kathmandu skidded off the main highway and plunged into a river on Saturday, killing at least 31 people and leaving others trapped, officials said.

The accident occurred around dawn, around 50 km (30 miles) west of the city on the Prithvi Highway that connects Kathmandu with the southern plains.

“We have recovered 31 bodies and are looking for more,” government official Ram Mani Mishra told Reuters from the scene. “It’s highly unlikely for anyone to survive for so long under water.”

Rescuers on rubber boats and police divers managed to spot the bus hours after the crash and were trying to lift it from water with the help of a crane, Mishra said.

Apart from the deaths, 16 people have been injured, government administrator Shyam Prasad Bhandari said. Two with grave injuries were taken to Kathmandu while the rest were treated at a local hospital, he said.

Police said survivors were thrown out of the bus windows but another 13 people were still believed to be trapped in the bus.

The bus had left Rajbiraj town in the southeastern plains on Friday night.

Road accidents are common in mostly mountainous Nepal, where police say about 1,800 people die in crashes every year. Accidents are also blamed on poorly maintained and crowded vehicles.

(Reuters)

Nepal to Hold General Election on November 26

The election timing is in line with Nepal’s first republican constitution that requires a new parliament to be in place before January 21, 2018.

FILE PHOTO: Nepalese Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba signs the oath after swearing-in ceremony at the presidential building in Kathmandu, Nepal, June 7, 2017. Credit: Reuters/Navesh Chitrakar/Files

Kathmandu: Nepal will hold a general election on November 26, the government said on Monday, hoping to conclude a turbulent journey to democracy a decade after a civil war and the abolition of its 239-year-old monarchy.

The election timing is in line with the Himalayan nation’s first republican constitution, drawn up in 2015, that requires a new parliament to be in place before January 21 next year.

In a blow to the government hours after the announcement, lawmakers rejected a government proposal to amend the constitution and meet some of the demands of the ethnic Madhesi minority community living in southern plains bordering India.

“Our demands are only defeated, not dead,” Hridayesh Tripathi, a Madhesi leader, told Reuters. “We will try to enlist enough support for our demands before the parliamentary elections.”

Madhesis are demanding greater participation in the central government.

Law minister Yagya Bahadur Thapa, confirming the cabinet’s decision on the election date, said Nepalis would celebrate their democratic rights. “This is going to be a big festival. There is no doubt about that,” he said.

Elections to seven state assemblies, set up under the new constitution to establish more of a federal system, would be held at the same time, he added.

The election will mark a personal triumph for new Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba, who was fired by Nepal‘s last monarch, King Gyanendra, in 2002.

The king had called Deuba “incompetent” for failing to contain a Maoist insurgency and hold elections.

Nepal has been in turmoil since a decade-long Maoist conflict ended in 2006 and the monarchy was abolished two years later.

One of Asia’s poorest countries, with nearly a quarter of its 28 million people living on less than $2 a day, Nepal has seen nine different governments since then.

The instability has stifled growth and unnerved investors. Two devastating earthquakes in 2015 dealt a further blow to efforts to stabilise the economy in a landlocked country with the potential to generate significant hydroelectric power.

Heavy monsoon rain in recent days has brought floods to Nepal‘s lowlands and killed more than 130 people.

Political developments are closely watched by neighbouring giants China and India, which jostle for influence.

Nepal is also in the middle of phased local elections, the first in two decades, with a final round set for September 18.

(Reuters)

Unable to Exchange Notes After Demonetisation, Nepalis Could Lose Their Savings

Nepalis had been verbally promised they would be able to exchange Rs 4,500 in old notes each, but no official decision has been sent yet on how this is to be done.

A money lender counts Indian rupee currency notes at his shop in Ahmedabad, India, May 6, 2015. Credit: Reuters/Amit Dave/Files

Kathmandu: Nepalis stand to lose millions of dollars held in high-value Indian bank notes that India banned last year and has yet to exchange, a Nepali central bank official said on Tuesday.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in November banned Rs 500 and Rs 1000 bank notes as part of a drive against unaccounted wealth in India that has also hit Nepal where Indian rupees are widely used.

People holding the notes in India were given a little less than two months to exchange them at banks.

In March, officials from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) visited Nepal and promised to allow every Nepali citizen to exchange Rs 4,500 Indian rupees worth of the old notes for new ones.

“That was only a verbal assurance but no formal decision from India has come to us,” said Chinta Mani Shivakoti, a deputy governor of the central Nepal Rastra Bank.

“Even if this amount was exchanged, individuals holding more than Rs 4,500 risk losing the excess,” Shivakoti said.

Nepal depends heavily on funds from workers in India, who sent home $640 million in 2016, or about 3% of its gross domestic product.

The Indian central bank declined to comment. An Indian finance ministry spokesman also declined to comment, saying it was a central bank matter.

India fears that if it agrees to Nepal’s demand to allow Nepalis to exchange unlimited amounts, a large number of Indians may launder their ill-gotten old notes through Nepal.

Shivakoti said Nepal’s banks hold Rs 78.5 million worth of the old notes, while business officials estimate that up to Rs 10 billion in old Indian rupees may be held by individuals in Nepal’s informal sector.

Another NRB official, Bhisma Raj Dhungana, said the delay in resolving the issue was causing concern.

“India should have allowed the exchange facility much earlier,” Dhungana said.

Ordinary Nepalis say they have been hit badly by the delay.

“My savings are worth no more than waste papers. I can’t do anything about it,” said Saila Thakuri, who has Rs 8,000 in old notes sent by his son who works in a restaurant in New Delhi.

(Reuters)

Nepal Holds Second Round of Crucial Local Election

The poll is an attempt to restore democracy at the local level hit by the civil war and years of instability after the monarchy was abolished.

A mark is pictured on the hand of a voter as he holds a walking stick during the local election of municipalities and village representatives in Thimi, Nepal May 14, 2017. Credit: Reuters/Navesh Chitrakar

Kathmandu: Nepalis began voting in the second round of local elections on Wednesday, a key step towards holding a general election later this year that would complete a near decade-long democratic transition after the abolition of its monarchy.

The latest round of voting covers parts of the restive southern plains that border India and there are concerns about possible violence after Rastriya Janata Party Nepal (RJPN), a group that dominates the area, said it would boycott the vote and called for a general strike.

In 2015 and 2016 scores of people were killed, mainly in clashes with police, in protests by the local ethnic Madhesi against a new constitution that they say leaves them marginalised and favours those living in the hills of the Himalayan nation.

The Madhesis are demanding a unified homeland, and greater participation in state organs, including parliament, the judiciary, bureaucracy and the national army.

“Elections cannot be held before our demands are met,” said Hridayesh Tripathi, a RJPN leader.

The local elections – the first in Nepal since 1997 – mark an attempt by the government to restore democracy at the local level hit by a decade-long civil war that ended in 2006 and years of instability after the monarchy was abolished in 2008.

“This election will empower local bodies and open the floodgate of social and economic prosperity,” President Bidya Devi Bhandari said in a statement.

Television channels showed lines of voters carrying umbrellas bearing candidates’ pictorial symbols including a glass, torch light, house and rhinoceros, but no names.

The first phase of municipal polls was held on May 14 and a final round is set for September 18 after the end of the monsoon rains. Local polls serve as a barometer of public opinion ahead of parliamentary elections expected before the year end.

(Reuters)