Rescuers struggle to recover Nepal crash bodies

Kathmandu, Sept 26: Rescuers struggled in rugged Himalayan terrain today to recover the bodies of 24 people who were killed when a helicopter chartered by conservation group WWF crashed in bad weather in eastern Nepal.

Army rescue teams found the wreckage of the Russian-built aircraft yesterday near Ghunsa, a village in Taplejung district, about 300 km east of the capital, Kathmandu, after a two day search hampered by rain and fog.

Police said the inaccessibility of the remote area, located above 3,500 metres (11,480 feet) and dominated by steep cliffs and gorges, had forced two helicopters carrying rescue teams to return today morning.

The nearest landing spot for helicopters is about two hours by foot from the wreckage and expert climbers were required to brave the dangerous terrain to get to the crash site, they said.

''It is a very difficult spot. You need Himalayan mountain rescuers to bring the bodies down. We are trying to coordinate that,'' police inspector Mahendra Shrestha said from Taplejung.

Even once rescuers were in place, the task of recovering the bodies of the 20 passengers and four crew members remained challenging, local officials said.

''Small pieces of bodies have scattered over the slopes.

They have to be collected and carried to a place where helicopters can land,'' said Hem Nath Dawadi, district administrator of Taplejung.

Rescue workers said there were only two bodies that were recognisable.

Officials said they suspected the helicopter may have slammed into the forested hills, broken into pieces and burst into flames.

The aircraft was carrying 17 Nepalis, a Finnish diplomat, two Americans, a Canadian and a Swiss-Australian, as well as two Russians.

Nepal's junior forest minister, Gopal Rai, his wife, Finnish Charge d'Affaires Pauli Mustonen, and the deputy director of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in Nepal, Margaret Alexander, were among those on board.

Other passengers were conservationists working for the WWF and two Nepali television journalists. The passengers had attended the handover of a WWF project to the local community and were on their way back.

REUTERS

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