EIGHT INDIAN TOURISTS DIE IN NEPAL RESORT

Tragedy struck a group of 15 tourists from Kerala in Nepal when eight of them, including four children, died after they fell unconscious probably due to a gas leak from a heater in their room at a mountainous resort.

THE KERALA RESIDENTS — TWO COUPLES AND THEIR KIDS — SLEPT IN ONE ROOM AND WERE FOUND UNCONSCIOUS IN THE MORNING

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM/KATHMANDU: Eight Indian tourists died after falling unconscious at a mountain resort in Nepal in what is suspected to be suffocation by carbon monoxide emanating from a gas heater inside their poorly ventilated room, officials said on Tuesday.

The eight Kerala residents — two couples and their children — slept in one room at a hotel in Daman, a popular tourist spot about 55km from capital Kathmandu.

“They were found unconscious this [Tuesday] morning and airlifted to Kathmandu, but died during treatment,” police spokesperson Shailesh Thapa

Chettri told news agency AFP.

The tourists, who were returning to India and were part of a 15-member group, used a gas heater to keep their room warm, a district official said. The area is at an altitude of nearly 2500 metres above sea level, according to a report on The News Minute website.

“We suspect they died of suffocation, but autopsy reports will confirm the cause,” Chettri said.

The group reportedly turned on the gas heater inside the room while the windows and doors were closed. The police suspected that they might have passed out due to lack of ventilation, according to some reports in the Nepali media. “Deeply distressed by the tragic news of the passing away of eight Indian tourists in Nepal,” external affairs minister S Jaishankar tweeted.

Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan expressed “deep grief” over the deaths, a release from his office said. The bodies are expected to be brought to the state on Wednesday after autopsy, the statement added.

V Muraleedharan, the minister of state for external affairs, said officials in Kathmandu’s Indian Embassy were taking steps to bring the bodies back as early as possible. A doctor at the embassy went to the hospital where the bodies were kept to examine the reasons for the deaths, he said.

The 15-member group of tourists was travelling from Pokhara to take a flight back home and stayed at Everest Panorama Resort in Daman in Makawanpur district on Monday night.

Although they booked a total of four rooms, eight of them stayed in one room while the remaining stayed in another room, The Himalayan Times quoted the manager of the resort as saying. All windows and the door of the room were bolted from inside, the manager, Shiva KC, said, according to the daily.