Heavy monsoon rains caused parts of a school to collapse in Nepal’s capital yesterday, killing two students and injuring 24 others, police said.
Police said that the pupils, who were aged nine and 10 and were in the third grade, had sat down for a lesson when one of the walls of the classroom came crashing down, burying them.
“Two students were killed and 24 others suffered injuries after the wall collapsed,” said local police chief, Pitambar Adhikari.
The injured are receiving treatment at hospitals in Lalitpur, a densely populated district in Kathmandu valley, Adhikari said.
A outer wall around the school compound also caved in, he said.
“All the (remaining) students have been evacuated from the school and sent to their respective homes.”
Scores of people die every year from rain-triggered disasters - including floods and landslides - during the
monsoon season in Nepal.
International flights hit: Incoming and outbound international flights were affected in Nepal’s only international airport here due to incessant rain since yesterday.
The flights were affected due to poor visibility on the runway at the Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA) here, Xinhua news agency reported.
An Air Arabia flight bound for Kathmandu was diverted to Lucknow in India after it failed to land at TIA.
An Air China flight coming from Guangzhou to Kathmandu was, meanwhile, diverted to Lhasa.
As many as 27 international carriers belonging to India, China, Bangladesh, Bhutan and China’s Hong Kong operate around 80 international flights to Kathmandu daily.