At least 55 people have died and nearly 700 tourists, including 200 Indians, stranded at a popular tourist district in central Nepal due to flooding and landslides triggered by heavy rainfall, officials said on Sunday.
Heavy rainfall has lashed Nepal for the past three days, swelling several Himalayan rivers beyond the danger mark and causing flooding and landslides at many places in the country. Rapti, which flows through a large part of Nepal towards the southern plains, flooded human settlements and hotels popular with tourists in the central Chitwan Valley.
The valley is home to Nepal’s first national park. More than 100 hotels have been partially submerged in Chitwan. Over 1,000 houses have been inundated in the Parsa district, further south,
The Himalayan Times reported. Of the 700 tourists stranded in Sauraha in the Chitwan National Park, nearly 200 were from India and about the same number from other countries. The rest were Nepalese citizens.
Meanwhile, six members of a family were killed in a landslide in Makawanpur district of central Nepal.