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Three people were killed and six others injured yesterday in two separate explosions in the Nepali capital, Kathmandu, and police said they suspected a Maoist splinter group may have been  responsible. Police official Shyam Lal Gyawali said: “We have three fatalities in two incidents of explosions but the nature of (the) blasts is under investigation.” One person was killed in an explosion inside a house in the Ghattekulo residential area in the heart of the city. “I heard a big noise and rushed to the spot to find the walls of a house had developed cracks due to the impact of the blast,” 17-year-old student Govinda Bhandari told Reuters at the site of the first blast. The second blast took place near a hairdresser’s in the Sukedhara area on the outskirts of the city. Two people were killed in this blast, police said. All six injured have been rushed to hospitals. A Reuters photographer at the site of the second blast said it had shattered the door and window panes of the shop and the area had been sealed off by the army. Gyawali, the police official, said they suspect the blasts may have been the work of a splinter group of former Maoist rebels who are opposed to the government for arresting its supporters. “A pamphlet from the group has been found at the site of the first blast,” Gyawali said. The house was used to make improvised or crude explosive devices by activists from the group, he said, adding one of the injured people was a supporter. Nepal emerged from a decade-long Maoist civil war in 2006 and the main group of the former rebels has joined the party that runs the government now. The breakaway group of former rebels carried out a similar blast in Kathmandu in February in which one person was killed and two others were injured. An army spokesman said a bomb disposal team had been rushed to nearby Lalitpur area after reports of a suspicious pressure cooker fitted with tape was seen near a bus park. No one has claimed responsibility for blasts.

Three people were killed and six others injured on Sunday in two separate explosions in the Nepali capital, Kathmandu, and police said they suspected a Maoist splinter group may have been responsible. Police official Shyam Lal Gyawali said: ‘We have three fatalities in two incidents of explosions but the nature of (the) blasts is under investigation.’ One person was killed in an explosion inside a house in the Ghattekulo residential area in the heart of the city. ‘I heard a big noise and rushed to the spot to find the walls of a house had developed cracks due to the impact of the blast,’ 17-year-old student Govinda Bhandari told Reuters at the site of the first blast. The second blast took place near a hairdresser's in the Sukedhara area on the outskirts of the city. Two people were killed in this blast, police said. All six injured have been rushed to hospitals. A Reuters photographer at the site of the second blast said it had shattered the door and window panes of the shop and the area had been sealed off by the army. Gyawali, the police official, said they suspect the blasts may have been the work of a splinter group of former Maoist rebels who are opposed to the government for arresting its supporters. ‘A pamphlet from the group has been found at the site of the first blast,’ Gyawali said. The house was used to make improvised or crude explosive devices by activists from the group, he said, adding one of the injured people was a supporter. Nepal emerged from a decade-long Maoist civil war in 2006 and the main group of the former rebels has joined the party that runs the government now. The breakaway group of former rebels carried out a similar blast in Kathmandu in February in which one person was killed and two others were injured. An army spokesman said a bomb disposal team had been rushed to nearby Lalitpur area after reports of a suspicious pressure cooker fitted with tape was seen near a bus park. No one has claimed responsibility for Sunday's blasts.

Three Indian climbers and one Nepali guide died on Mount Everest in the past couple of days, taking to seven the total number killed or missing on the world’s highest mountain in this year’s climbing season, Nepali officials said yesterday. More than 120 climbers scaled Everest on Thursday, but some of them were caught in the crowd of people on the slopes, leading to exhaustion, dehydration and death, the  officials said. Hiking officials say between five and 10 climbers die on Mount Everest in an average climbing year. Two women from India were among those who died. They were named as Anjali Sharad Kulkarni, 54, from the commercial capital of Mumbai, and 49-year-old Kalpana Das, from the eastern state of Odisha. Both died while descending from the summit, which is 8,850m  (29,035ft) high. The Indian man who died, also while descending, was Nihal Ashpak Bagwan, 27, from India’s western city of Pune. “Bagwan died of dehydration, exhaustion and tiredness after being caught in the jam of climbers,” said Keshab Paudel of the Peak Promotion hiking agency that handled the  climber’s logistics. “We don’t know for how long the jam lasted nor how many climbers were clogged by a single line near the summit,”  Paudel said. Lhakpa Sherpa of another agency, Arun Treks and Expeditions, said his client, Kulkarni, died of weakness while coming down to Camp IV on the South Col of Everest. The deaths were confirmed by Mira Acharya, an official of Nepal’s tourism department. Nepal has issued permits to 379 climbers on Mount Everest in the season, which ends this month. The Nepali guide fell sick and died yesterday, officials said without giving details. Another Nepali guide perished on nearby Mount Makalu, they said, also without providing more information. A total of 17 climbers have died or are missing on different Himalayan peaks in Nepal, seven of them Indians, since the start of the climbing season in March. On the Tibetan side of the mountain there have been additional casualties, though it wasn’t immediately clear how many. A member of a Swiss team died at 8,600m (28,215ft) on the Tibetan side of the mountain on Thursday, according to Everest blogger Alan Arnette, who cited a Swiss operator, Kobler & Partner. The climber’s full name has not been released. “The winds have returned, plus the routes are extremely crowded on both sides, due to few summit weather windows this spring,” Arnette said on his blog.

Nepal said yesterday it has banned popular Chinese digital wallets Alipay and WeChat to prevent the loss of foreign currency earnings from tens of thousands of Chinese tourists. Over 150,000 Chinese holidaymakers visited Nepal last year, many using digital wallets to pay in hotels, restaurants and shops in tourist areas - especially in Chinese-run businesses.  Laxmi Prapanna Niroula, a spokesman for the country’s central bank which announced the ban on Monday, said that Nepal was losing out since the actual transactions took place in China.  “We have enforced a ban on Alipay and WeChat Pay because the country is losing foreign currency earnings through its usage. Action will be taken if anyone is found using the platforms,” Niroula said.  Niroula said there was no information available on the volume of transactions concerned. Alipay, started by e-commerce giant Alibaba and owned by its affiliate Ant Financial, and WeChat Pay, built into Tencent’s popular messaging service, have hundreds of millions of users between them and are China’s dominant payment platforms. “Chinese tourists often ask for digital payment options. With the ban, people are bound to lose business,” said Sushil Koirala, who runs a tea shop in Thamel, Kathmandu’s main tourist area.  A street in Thamel has even earned the name Chinatown because of the high number of Chinese-run hotels and restaurants. Tourism is a major revenue-earner for impoverished Nepal, home to eight of the world’s 14 peaks over 8,000m (26,000ft).  Tourism contributed 7.8% to the Himalayan nation’s economy in 2017, creating over a million jobs, according to the World Travel and Tourism Council. Last year it welcomed more than 1mn visitors for the first time.

Two Indian climbers died and an Irish mountaineer is missing on the Himalayan peaks of Nepal, officials said on Friday, taking the number of climbers dead or missing this week to six and raising questions about safety and training standards. Hundreds of mountaineers from around the world are in Nepal, home to eight of the world's 14 highest mountains, for the spring climbing season which ends this month. Ravi Thakar, a 27-year old from New Delhi, was found dead on Friday in a tent on the South Col of Mount Everest, the world's highest mountain, his trekking company said. The cause of death was not immediately known, said Thaneswor Guragain of the Seven Summit Treks agency. Seamus Sean Lawless, a 39-year-old college teacher from Dublin, has been missing since Thursday after he slipped on snow and fell while descending from Everest's 8,850-metre (29,035-feet) summit, Guragain said. Indian Narayan Singh, 34, died from altitude sickness on Mount Makalu, the fifth highest mountain in the world, on Thursday while returning from the 8,462 metre (27,762 feet) summit, said tourism official Mira Acharya. Singh, from the northern state of Uttarakhand, was a member of an Indian army expedition. ‘INEXPERIENCE’ On Wednesday, two Indian climbers died and a Chilean mountaineer was missing on Mount Kanchenjunga, the world's third tallest peak. A record 378 climbers received permits for Mount Everest in the current March-May climbing season, according to Nepal's tourism department. This year's climbing campaign has seen mountaineers and sherpas injured by rock falls, while others have slipped on the dangerous Lhotse Face or suffered altitude sickness, said blogger Alan Arnett. ‘Sadly, all of these incidents suggest a level of inexperience and inadequate support,’ he wrote in a blog. Adrian Ballinger of the US based company Alpenglow Expeditions, which sponsors climbers to Everest, said he believed many clients were not receiving sufficient support or training to take on the highest mountains. ‘Too many budget teams are willing to take any one on to their teams... They are not necessarily supported by Khumbu Climbing Centre-trained Sherpas or IFMGA (International Federation of Mountain Guides Association) certified mountain guides,’ Ballinger told Reuters. ‘Because of the lack of government regulations specially on the Nepali side we are going to continue to see this type of accidents,’ he said. But the head of the Nepal Mountaineering Association said only climbers with adequate training and experience were cleared to attempt the highest peaks. ‘Even the most experienced climbers could meet with accidents on a minor technical mistake, extreme weather and winds,’ association chief Santa Bir Lama told Reuters.

A Malaysian climber stranded in the open for two nights on one of the world's most treacherous mountains was rescued in Nepal Thursday, expedition organisers said. Climbing experts said it was a ‘miracle’ that 48-year-old Chin Wui Kin survived the freezing conditions on Mount Annapurna for so long. Chin reached the top of the 8,100-metre (26,500-foot) Himalayan mountain on Tuesday but failed to return to the nearest camp, one kilometre below the peak, with the rest of his group. Frantic efforts began to find him after his guide stumbled to the camp and raised the alert. ‘Our team has found him alive. He is conscious,’ Thaneshwor Guragain of Seven Summit Treks told AFP. A rescue helicopter spotted Kin waving from the snowy slopes at an elevation of around 7,500 metres (24,500 feet) early Thursday, organisers said. Four experienced sherpas were then dropped at another camp at 6,500 metres (21,300 feet) to try to reach him. ‘They have given him some water and are trying to bring him down,’ Guragain said. No details of his condition were given. But Mingma Sherpa of Seven Summits Treks called the rescue ‘a miracle’. ‘We were very worried yesterday. Not everyone can survive at that altitude for that long. This is rare,’ he said. Hundreds of people from around the world travel to the Himalayas each year for the spring climbing season, when conditions are best. Chin had returned to Nepal after summiting Everest last year. Annapurna is avalanche-prone, technically difficult and has a higher death rate than Everest, the world's highest peak. Nine South Korean climbers were killed last October after a snowstorm swept them off a cliff on Mount Gurja, west of Annapurna.

A small plane veered off the runway and hit two helicopters while taking off near Mount Everest on Sunday, killing three people and injuring three, officials said. The accident happened at Lukla airport which is the main gateway to the Everest region and is reputed to be one of the most difficult in the world for landings and take-offs. A co-pilot from the Let-410 run by Summit Air bound for Kathmandu and a police officer on the ground were killed on the spot, Lukla airport official Ema Nath Adhikari told AFP. Another policeman died in hospital in Kathmandu, a police spokesman confirmed. "The plane slipped towards the helipad during take-off and collided with two helicopters. The injured have been sent to Kathmandu for treatment," Adhikari said.  "We are not sure about the cause of the accident." Lukla airport is used by thousands of trekkers and climbers heading for the Everest region each year. It is particularly busy in April as the spring mountain climbing season begins.  Nepal's aviation industry has boomed in recent years, flying tourists and goods to remote corners of the Himalayan nation where road access is limited.  But the impoverished country has a poor air safety record due to weak training and maintenance. The European Union has banned all Nepalese airlines from its airspace over safety concerns. Seven people, including the country's tourism minister, were killed in February when a helicopter crashed in the hilly east. 

Nepal will send a dedicated team to Mount Everest this climbing season to collect garbage and retrieve bodies littering the world's highest peak, officials said Thursday. Decades of commercial mountaineering have turned the mountain into the world's highest rubbish dump as an increasing number of big-spending climbers pay little attention to the ugly footprint they leave behind. Fluorescent tents, discarded climbing equipment, empty gas canisters and even human excrement pollute the well-trodden route to the summit of the 8,848-metre (29,029-foot) peak. ‘We take pride in Mount Everest but we are often accused of not being able to clean it... We have now come together to clean the mountain,’ said Dandu Raj Ghimire, chief of Nepal's tourism department. The government has joined hands with mountaineering associations, the army and local organisations to coordinate the clean-up effort. A 14-member team will be sent to Everest base camp from April 25 and aim to bring back 10,000 kilogrammes (11 tons) of trash. Eight members will then ascend to Camp 2 at 6,400 metres and teams of three will take turns to go up to Camp 4 at 7,950 metres, where they will spend 15 days litter-picking on the snowy slopes. Climbers and high altitude workers will be given incentives to bring back the bundled trash down to the base camp and the recyclables will be airlifted to the capital. ‘This is the first time the government has taken initiative to clean the mountain... but it can't be done in just one year. We have to continue this,’ said Santa Bir Sherpa of the Nepal Mountaineering Association. Six years ago, Nepal implemented a $4,000 rubbish deposit per team that would be refunded if each climber brought down at least eight kilogrammes (18 pounds) of waste, but only half of the climbers return with their trash. In February, China banned non-climbers from accessing its Everest base camp in Tibet in an attempt to clean up its side of the mountain. Over 4,000 people have climbed Everest so far, and last year saw a record 807 climbers reach the summit. Melting glaciers caused by global warming are exposing bodies and trash that have accumulated on the mountain since Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay made the first successful summit 66 years ago. Environmentalists are also concerned that the pollution on Everest is also affecting water sources down in the valley.

A freak storm tore down houses and overturned cars and trucks as it swept across southern Nepal killing at least 27 people and leaving more than 600 injured, officials said Monday. The rare spring storm battered the rural district of Bara and adjoining areas late Sunday. Five children were among the dead, the home ministry said, and a major operation was underway Monday to get relief supplies to the region and evacuate injured. The winds were so fierce that they overturned a bus carrying passengers, witnesses said. Houses, trees and electricity pylons were all toppled in the storm. Injured victims flocked to local hospitals who were unable to cope and at least seven people were airlifted to Kathmandu for treatment. ‘I've never seen anything like this. The winds took away everything, my home and my family,’ Ram Babu Patel, 45, whose wife was killed in the storm, told AFP by telephone. ‘I was at home getting ready for dinner when the storm hit -- it was unbelievable. We have nothing left.’ Many of the victims were crushed to death under the debris of their houses or by fallen trees and poles. The strong winds overturned parked cars on the roads. Prakash Tharu, a volunteer in Bara district hit hard by the storm, described the scene of devastation in the villages. ‘The storm destroyed everything in its path. Houses have no roofs and trees are all down,’ Tharu said. ‘There is a desperate need for food and relief.’ Rescuers struggled to reach many settlements blocked by fallen trees and electricity poles. ‘Security bodies including the army have been working intensely since Sunday night on rescues and relief,’ said Rajesh Poudel, Bara's district chief. Every year hundreds die in landslides and floods during Nepal's monsoon season, but storms causing such high casualties in spring are rare. Nepal's difficult terrain and limited infrastructure often leaves emergency workers struggling to reach far-flung areas. Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli expressed his condolences and said that the government would do its best for treatment of the injured. The provincial government has announced free treatment and a financial assistance of 300,000 rupees ($2,710) for families of the dead.

Nepalese expedition operators on Thursday expressed concern over the rising number of dead bodies being exposed as snow melts on Everest ahead of the busy spring climbing season. Damber Parajuli, president of the Expedition Operators Association of Nepal, said the government should initiate a campaign to clean up trash left by climbers and retrieve dead bodies from the mountain. ‘The bodies of climbers who fell into crevasses or died during the expedition have appeared after several years. We can help recover those bodies, but we need the government's approval to handle it,’ he told dpa. ‘Climbers die of altitude sickness or fall to their death on the mountain,’ said Ang Tshering Sherpa, former president of Nepal Mountaineering Association. ‘Dead bodies at Everest's higher camps are left there because it takes huge effort to bring them back.’  Commercial expeditions on Everest run between April and May. The dead bodies are exposed following the snow melt towards the end of the climbing season, he said. Sherpas from his expedition company have retrieved seven bodies from Everest in the last 10 years. While about 5,000 people have successfully reached the top of Everest, more than 400 have died in their attempts. Around 200 of the dead are still believed to be buried in the snow.

Nepal's government has banned a radical Maoist party that carried out a series of bomb attacks in the capital Kathmandu, a minister said Wednesday. The announcement was made after the government's efforts to hold talks with the party failed. One person was killed and two others injured last month when the Communist Party of Nepal, led by a former Maoist guerrilla, detonated a bomb outside the office of a telecoms company in Kathmandu. The party, which splintered from the ruling Maoists five years ago, also set off a bomb at the residence of a businessman in Kathmandu over the weekend. Two people were injured in the blast. "It's the state's responsibility to control such activities. So we have decided to ban them," Foreign Minister Pradeep Gyawali told local media on Wednesday.  Police also suspect the radical party of responsibility for a blast outside municipal offices in the south-central town of Bharatpur late Tuesday. Maoist rebels fought an armed insurgency against state security forces between 1996 and 2006 that killed more than 16,000 people. A peace accord was signed in November 2006.

Temporary teachers in Nepal shut down schools across the country Tuesday, demanding that their contracts be made permanent, with protests affecting around six million students. An organization representing 40,000 temporary teachers began a series of strikes on Sunday. On Monday, protesting teachers clashed with police in Kathmandu, which left several teachers injured, according to local media. The demonstrators are protesting an education bill that proposes only 20 percent of temporary teachers at government- and community-run schools will be made permanent. Previously, the government filled 70 per cent of vacant teaching positions with temporary teachers, who were given permanent contracts, and positions were filled based on internal competition, said Khem Raj Adhikari, a leader of the protesters. But the new bill proposes making just 20 per cent of the positions permanent, leaving the rest to be filled by temporary teachers, he explained. Ministry of Education spokesman Bishnu Prasad Mishra said his office had urged protesters to end their demonstration and hold talks with the government. ‘It will take some time before the bill is passed by parliament. We have assured them we will address their grievances,’ he said. The temporary teachers were hired by schools across the country after permanent positions went vacant over the years, according to the spokesman.

Nepal's tourism minister Rabindra Adhikari was among seven people killed Wednesday when a helicopter crashed in the country's hilly east, officials said. Rescue workers retrieved the bodies of Adhikari, 49, the pilot and five other passengers from a hillside in Taplejung district where the Air Dynasty chopper went down. ‘The respected minister's body has been identified,’ home affairs ministry spokesman Ram Krishna Subedi said in a press conference. The minister's personal bodyguard has been identified as among the dead. The owner of the helicopter company was also aboard but his body has not been formally identified. Subedi said two army helicopters had been dispatched to bring the bodies back to the capital Kathmandu. Two other private helicopters had also been sent to assist but local authorities said snowy weather had made it difficult for the choppers to land. A search and rescue team was deployed to the area after locals alerted authorities to flames and smoke rising from a hillside. ‘The helicopter is in pieces, and scattered all over. Everything was in flames,’ said Suraj Bhattarai, a witness who saw the debris. The helicopter crashed into the hillside minutes after taking off from a nearby temple, a local official said. The minister was on a trip to scope out a new airstrip in the region. The exact causes of the crash remain unknown. It is just the latest aviation accident to plague Nepal, an impoverished Himalayan nation with a poor air safety record. Nepal has some of the world's most remote and tricky runways, flanked by snow-capped peaks with approaches that pose a challenge for even accomplished pilots. The country has a booming private helicopter industry, flying tourists and goods to remote corners of the country where road access is limited or non-existent. In September last year, six people including a Japanese tourist were killed in a helicopter crash. A US-Bangla Airways plane crashed near the capital's airport in March, killing 51 people. Nepal-based airlines are banned from flying in European Union airspace. Its poor air safety record is largely blamed on inadequate maintenance and sub-standard management.

A helicopter carrying Nepal's tourism minister has crashed in Nepal's hilly east, officials said Wednesday, with no word yet on the fate of those aboard. The minister, Rabindra Adhikari, was travelling with five other passengers from the eastern district of Taplejung to Terathum when the Air Dynasty chopper went down. "A helicopter carrying Nepal's tourism minister has crashed, but we do not have any more information right now," Home Secretary Prem Kumar Rai told reporters. It is just the latest aviation accident to plague Nepal, an impoverished Himalayan nation with a poor air safety record. Nepal has some of the world's most remote and tricky runways, flanked by snow-capped peaks with approaches that pose a challenge for even accomplished pilots. In April last year, a Malaysian jet with 139 people on board aborted its takeoff and skidded off a runway.  A month earlier a US-Bangla Airways plane crashed near an airport, killing 51 people.  Nepal-based airlines are banned from flying in European Union airspace. Its poor air safety record is largely blamed on inadequate maintenance and sub-standard management. 

Nepal's government on Wednesday tabled draft legislation that would impose harsh penalties for "improper" social media posts, igniting concerns it could be used to suppress freedom of speech and stifle dissent. Under the proposed law, the government would have the power to block social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube unless they register in Nepal. And social media posts deemed defamatory or against national sovereignty could be punished with up to five years in jail and a fine of 1.5 million Nepalese rupees ($13,000). No timetable was given for passing the bill, but activists have described it as an attempt to shackle criticism of the powerful communist government, which has a two-thirds majority in parliament. "The bill is against the freedom of expression and justice as it criminalises online expression," Tara Nath Dahal of Freedom Forum, a media freedom organisation, told AFP. The government has defended the bill, saying it is needed to ensure data and internet security. "The bill was registered to manage social networking sites because the challenges caused by such sites are increasing," information minister Gokul Prasad Baskota told parliament. Under the proposed law, the government can also instruct social network site operators to remove posts. Failure to do so could lead to a three-year jail term and a 30,000-rupee fine. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has called on the government to address concerns raised by rights groups. "The proposed law put forward by the Nepal government is a blatant attempt to control and muzzle freedom of expression on social media," it said in a statement. "Freedom of expression is guaranteed in the Nepal constitution, and this must be respected and protected by the government." The ruling party has shown increasing intolerance for dissent since its landslide victory in 2017.  Another law barring civil servants from criticising government policies on social media was tabled earlier this month. A popular folk singer was forced to take down a satirical anti-corruption song from YouTube last week after pressure from ruling party cadres. Nepal, with a population of about 30 million, has an internet penetration of 57 percent.  Social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter have millions of users in the South Asian nation.

A popular Nepali folk singer has been forced to remove a satirical song on corruption from YouTube after a youth wing of the ruling communist party allegedly threatened him, local media reported on Monday. Pashupati Sharma, a folk singer in his 30s, released a video of the song ‘Lutna Sake Lut, Nepal Mai Chha Chhut’ over the weekend, with the song immediately striking a chord among Nepalis angered by widespread corruption in the country. The opening lyrics mean ‘Loot whatever you can since that's allowed only in Nepal.’  Sharma said he took off the video after he received threatening calls from members of Youth Federation of Nepal, a student wing of the ruling Nepal Communist Party. ‘They objected to certain words of the song. So I removed it [from YouTube]. I will upload it after revision,’ he told a local radio station on Monday. The move has triggered protests from people who say it's an attack on freedom of expression and creative rights. The current communist government has been accused of curtailing freedom of expression and increasing surveillance on social media users.

One-third of glaciers in the Himalayan mountain ranges could be lost by the end of the 21st century as a result of climate change, potentially complicating the lives of the 1.9 billion people living in the region, a report released late Monday warned. Failing to curb the effects of climate change could result in the loss of the glaciers by 2100, according to the 627-page report from the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development, a Kathmandu-based research organization. ‘This is the climate crisis you haven't heard of,’ said Philippus Wester, one of the report's authors. ‘Global warming is on track to transform frigid, glacier-covered mountain peaks ... across eight countries to bare rocks in a little less than a century.’  The region stretches 350,000 kilometres from Afghanistan to Myanmar. The range's peaks supply water to some of the world's largest river systems including the Ganges, the Indus, the Mekong and the Irrawaddy. The melting of glaciers could cause glacial lake flood outbursts, endangering lives in mountain communities and downstream communities, the report said. Air pollutants from India's densely populated Gangetic plains deposit black carbon and dust on the glaciers, hastening their melting, it added. Tashi Tenjing Sherpa, a 65-year-old from Khumjung village near Everest, said population growth and climate change have already made mountain people vulnerable. ‘The snow cover in the mountains is decreasing. The extreme weather events will have huge implications on people like us,’ he told dpa.

* March 2018 crash killed 51 of 71 on board * Crew lost situational awareness - investigators * Better monitoring of mental health recommended The captain of a Bangladeshi aeroplane "seemed to have an emotional breakdown" before a deadly crash last March, Nepali investigators said in a final report on the Himalayan nation's worst aviation disaster in 26 years. They blamed the crew's loss of situational awareness for the crash of the US-Bangla Airlines flight to the Nepali capital from Dhaka that caught fire on landing in Kathmandu, killing 51 of the 71 people aboard. "The pilot thought he could maneuver the aircraft and land. But he could not," panel official Buddhisagar Lamichhane, told Reuters on Monday, referring to the captain. The captain was under stress and "emotionally disturbed" because he felt that a female colleague who was not on board the fatal flight had questioned his reputation as a good instructor, Nepal's Accident Investigation Commission said in the report. "This, together with the failure on the part of both the crew to follow the standard operating procedure at the critical stage of the flight, contributed to the loss of situational awareness," said the report, submitted late on Sunday. This lack of awareness meant the crew did not realise the deviation of the aircraft, a Bombardier Inc Q400 turboprop, from its intended path, which in turn meant they could not sight the runway, it added. Having missed the runway, the crew was flying very low north of it in an incorrect position near hilly and mountainous terrain around the airport, it said. "Finally, when the crew sighted the runway, they were very low and too close to (it) and not properly aligned," added the report, saying the captain should have halted the landing and initiated a go-around. The plane skidded off the runway on to surrounding grass, quickly catching fire. Both pilots were among those killed. US-Bangla Airlines expects to make an official statement later on Monday, Chief Executive Imran Asif said. The flight's captain, aged 52, was released in 1993 from the Bangladeshi Air Force because he suffered from depression but was later declared fit to fly civilian aircraft, the report said, with recent medical reports mentioning no symptoms. Citing the voice recorder and the eyewitness accounts of passengers, the report said the captain was smoking in the cockpit during the flight and "engaged in unnecessary, unprofessional and lengthy conversation even in the critical phase," violating the norm of maintaining a sterile cockpit. He shared the cockpit with a female first officer, 25, who had a total of just 390 hours of flying experience and had never previously landed at Kathmandu as crew, the report said, contradicting a US-Bangla spokesman who last year said she had made landings there before. Landing at Kathmandu airport, which is surrounded by hills, is considered difficult. In 1992, all 167 on board a Pakistan International Airlines aeroplane were killed when it plowed into a hill as it tried to land. On the US-Bangla flight, the disparity in experience and added authority of the captain probably deterred the first officer from being more assertive during significant phases such as the final approach and landing, the report said. The report recommended that the airline emphasise proper crew resource management and set up a mechanism to monitor and assess the mental status of the crew regarding professional development, financial, personal and psychological issues. Pilot mental health was spotlighted by a 2015 crash in Europe after a Germanwings first officer deliberately flew a jet into a mountainside. Last year, the European Commission adopted new rules on the mental health of pilots, for the first time requiring airlines to do a psychological assessment before hiring them.

Twenty-three people died in western Nepal when a bus carrying school students and teachers back from a botanical field trip plunged into a gorge, police said. The students were aged mostly between 16 and 20. Two teachers and the driver also died in the accident early evening on Friday in a remote area. The vehicle was carrying 37 people, with 22 killed at the scene and another in a nearby hospital. Fourteen people were treated for injuries. ‘Our preliminary investigation shows the cause of the incident was speed,’ police officer Bel Bahadur Pandey told AFP. Road accidents are relatively common in Nepal because of poor roads, badly maintained vehicles and reckless driving. The latest comes a week after a truck accident in central Nepal killed 20 mourners returning from a funeral ritual.

Formed in the shadow of Mount Everest, the turquoise depths of Nepal’s Imja glacial lake would be a breathtaking miracle of nature to behold – were they not a portent of catastrophic floods. Scientists warn that as climate change causes Himalayan glaciers to melt at an alarming rate, lakes like Imja could swell further and eventually collapse, triggering a terrifying deluge in Nepal, an impoverished nation at the mercy of a warming planet. Those tasked with staving off disaster fear a ‘glacial lake outburst flood’ – sending torrents of water, mud and rock hurtling downstream – could reach as far as Nepal’s densely populated southern plains, wiping out roads, vital energy projects and entire villages in its path. “The risk is getting bigger,” said a climate scientist from the Kathmandu-based International Centre for  Integrated Mountain Development. “These valleys are getting more populated, and infrastructure is  developing rapidly.” Hundreds of these lakes have appeared out of nowhere in the Himalayas in recent decades. A 2014 survey found one quarter of Nepal’s glaciers shrunk between 1977 and 2010, leaving behind 1,466 lakes. Twenty-one have been identified as potentially dangerous and Nepal is racing to stay a step ahead of disaster, as global warming reshapes its  mountain geography. “As a small country, there is little we can do to stop what is happening to our glaciers,” said Rishi Ram Sharma, the director general at Nepal’s department of hydrology and meteorology. “But we have to do what we can do to adapt and protect our people.” Nepal’s fastest-growing lake, Imja once posed little threat to the villagers of Surke, a picturesque hamlet perched high in the Everest region. In the early 1980s, the small lake at the foot of the Imja glacier at 5,010m (16,437ft) was unremarkable. But by 2014, it had more than tripled in size, contained only by a natural wall of debris, known as a moraine, which experts warned might not hold back the waters much longer.  A year later, when a massive earthquake struck Nepal, villagers in Surke assumed Imja had collapsed and would soon bury them all. “We were terrified the quake would trigger a flood from the lake. All of us ran for safety,” villager Phudoma Sherpa said. The lake miraculously held – sparing the 12,000 people directly in its path.  But the quake served as a wake-up call for policymakers. Experts told the government that the gigantic glacial lakes were  effectively a ticking time bomb.  With thousands of lives at stake, a massive undertaking began in late 2016 to drain Imja, which then measured 150m deep and 2km (1.2 miles) long.  Only the second operation of its kind in Nepal’s history, the project was a testament to the monumental challenge posed by glacial lakes, which are often remote and very difficult to access. Yaks and helicopters transported materials and teams of workers to the high-altitude region, where they toiled in thin air for six months until a drainage canal and early-warning system were installed. The lake was lowered by 3.5m, draining more than 5mn cubic metres of water.  “Now, you have a channel. So any water that accumulates is drained out. That is how the risk is lowered,” said Deepak K C, a climate change analyst from the United Nations Development Programme that backed the project.