Kathmandu, 16 October 2014: Prime Minister Sushil Koirala has extended condolences on the death of over two dozen people in the avalanche and the snowstorm occurred in Manang and Mustang districts on October 16.
“I pay tributes to the Nepali and foreign nationals who lost their life to the snowstorm and pray for the eternal peace of the departed souls and also extend my deep sympathies to the grief-stricken families and their relatives at this hour of grief,” the Prime Minister stated in a condolence message issued today.
The snowfall that occurred in the beginning of autumn, the season considered appropriate for sight-seeing and trekking, has taken the lives of the Nepali and foreign tourists who were on a visit of the popular trekking route – the Annapurna Circuit, PM Koirala said.
The Prime Minister has urged the Nepalese Army, the Nepal Police and the local administration as well as the tourism entrepreneurs and the trekking and mountaineering expedition agencies operating in the area for the prompt search and rescue of those people who are out of contact following the snowstorm.
“It is a matter of great sadness that so many lives have been lost even in the situation where the facility to avail of the global weather information of short intervals is available,” Prime Minister Koirala said, adding that Nepal’s mountainous region is considered sensitive in terms of the environmental hazards and the impact of the climate change has also been seen more in this region.
Noting that this accident that has repeated at the beginning of the trekking tourism season when the wounds inflicted by the untimely avalanche in the Sagarmatha area some time back are still not healed has brought us to the situation in which Nepal’s tourism development has to be throughout in a new way, the Prime Minister said that the need of installing equipment that give updated information of the weather in the mountainous region having tourism attraction and potentials and of conducting treks and mountaineering activities based on the information thus received.
The Prime Minister has also pointed out the need of setting up weather early warning centres in areas across the country where it is urgently required, especially in the mountainous region and the riparian areas in view of the human casualties occurred some time back. He has given assurances that the government would take steps towards that end and also expressed the belief that the private sector and the NGOs working in the sectors of climate change, natural disaster risk reduction and management would extend support and coordinate in this.
Prime Minister Koirala has also wished for the speedy recovery of those injured in these incidents.
Source: RSS
