(Kathmandu) The search for at least 63 people missing after a monsoon-triggered landslide swept two buses into a river in Nepal resumed Saturday.
“We will search in all possible places,” Indra Dev Yadav, the chief of the central district of Chitwan where the accident occurred, assured AFP.
“We will use all our capabilities for search and rescue, despite the water level, the current and the muddy water,” he added.
The operations were interrupted on Friday by nightfall, with no trace of the vehicles or the missing persons being found.
The landslide sent the two buses at least 30 metres down the road into the Trishuli River.
According to local administration official Khiminanda Bhusal, the two buses were carrying 24 and 42 passengers, but three managed to escape.
The survivors are out of danger and one has been released from hospital.
The accident happened on the road linking the towns of Narayanghat and Mugling, about 100 kilometres west of the capital Kathmandu, early Friday around 3:30 a.m. (5:45 p.m. Eastern time on Thursday).
PHOTO RAJESH GHIMIRE, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Rescuers search for survivors in the Trishuli River in Simaltar on July 12.
One of the buses was travelling from Kathmandu to Gaur in Rautahat district in southern Nepal and the other was on its way to Kathmandu from Birgunj in the south of the country.
Fatal accidents are relatively common in this Himalayan country, due in part to poor road conditions and poorly maintained vehicles.
According to government figures, nearly 2,400 people lost their lives on Nepal’s roads in the 12 months to April.
Some 12 people were killed and 24 injured in an accident in January when a bus travelling to Kathmandu from Nepalgunj fell into a river.
Roads are even more dangerous during the monsoon season, as rains cause landslides and flooding.
Scientists say climate change is making the monsoon, which hits South Asia from June to September, even stronger and more erratic.