Kathmandu: Nepal has formed a five-member team to investigate and submit a report within 15 days into the death of eight Indian tourists, including four minors, who died in their room at a resort in the Himalayan country as the postmortem of the bodies was underway here on Wednesday.
Tragedy struck a group of 15 tourists from Kerala when eight of them died due to possible asphyxiation after they fell unconscious probably due to a gas leak from a heater in their room at a mountainous resort in Makwanpur district.
The tourists were airlifted to HAMS hospital here where they were pronounced dead on arrival. Makwanpur police said the victims might have fallen unconscious due to asphyxiation.
The Department of Tourism in a press statement said that a five-member committee has been formed to investigate if the resort was following the standards set by the government, myrepublica news portal reported.
The department has asked the committee to submit the investigation report within the next 15 days, it said.
“Postmortem of the bodies is underway at the Teaching Hospital in Kathmandu and they would be flown back home on Thursday,” a senior official at the Indian Embassy told PTI on Wednesday.
The official said that out of the seven who survived, two stayed back to accompany the bodies while the others left. The victims were identified as Praveen Krishnan Nair, Saranya Sasi, Sreebhadra Praveen, Aarcha Praveen, Abhinav Saranya Nair, Ranjith Kumar Adatholath Punathil, Indu Lakshmi Peethambaran Ragalatha and Vyshnav Ranjith. (PTI)
