Nepali elephants to the rescue

ELEPHANTS were pressed into service to rescue hundreds of foreign tourists trapped in a Nepal jungle safari park after four days of heavy rains brought on flash floods and landslides that killed 70.

In Sauraha, 80km south of Kathmandu, the Rapti River overflowed, stranding some 600 tourists.

Sauraha, on the fringe of Chitwan National Park, is home to 605 greater one-horned rhinoceroses, or Indian rhinoceroses, and is popular with foreign tourists, mainly for elephant rides and rhinowatching.

“Some 300 guests were rescued on elephant backs and tractor trailers to (nearby) Bharatpur yesterday and the rest will be taken to safer places today,” Suman Ghimire, chief of a group of Sauraha hotel owners, said by telephone on Monday.

Shiva Raj Bhatta of WWF Nepal said one rhino had died thefloods.

Relief workers said 26 of Nepal’s 75 districts were either submerged or hit by landslides after heavy rains lashed the mainly mountainous nation, home to Mount Everest and the birthplace of Lord Buddha.

Information and Communications Minister Mohan Bahadur Basnet said more than 60,000 homes were under water, mainly in the southern plains.

Large swaths of farmland are also under water, and the Himalayan country could face food shortages due to crop losses, aid workers said.

“The heavy rains hit at one of the worst times, shortly after farmers planted their rice crop in the country’s most important agricultural region,” said Sumnima Shrestha, a spokesman for nonprofit group Heifer International. – Reuters in