Nepal bus crash leaves 19 dead, 18 injured

The death toll from a bus crash on a mountain road in southern Nepal has risen to 19 after two passengers succumbed to their injuries on Thursday, local police said.

The passenger bus veered off a road and plunged into a gorge in Narapani village of Arghakhanchi district in southern Nepal on Wednesday.

The bus was heading to Butwal, the main city of the region, from Sandhikharka, the disztrict headquarters.
Prakash Bista, a local police officer, said the driver lost control of his vehicle in a hairpin turn of the narrow mountain road.

"Eighteen injured passengers are being treated in several hospitals,” he said, Deutsche press agency (dpa) reported.

Among them, three are in serious condition," he told dpa.
The crash site is around 227 kilometres south-west of Kathmandu.

The wreckage was scattered along the slope below the road and the police search and rescue team struggled to retrieve the bodies, Nepal's Kantipur newspaper reported on Thursday.
Road accidents are common in mountainous Nepal, which in recent years has seen a push to build roads connecting remote regions to towns and cities across the country.