By Michael Vurens van Es
KATHMANDU, Nepal
A Turkish Airlines plane skidded off the runway at an airport in Nepal's capital, Kathmandu, leaving one passenger slightly injured.
The flight inbound from Istanbul on Wednesday morning was carrying more than 200 passengers.
Pictures emerging from the scene show heavy fog, though the exact causes of the incident remain unknown.
Purna Chudal, manager of Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal told The Anadolu Agency that the plane skidded off the runway at Tribhuvan International Airport and onto a nearby area of grass at 7:40 a.m. Chudal said the plane had been scheduled to arrive earlier but the pilots had to delay the landing.
"All passengers are safe. There are no serious injuries, just minor ones. The domestic airport will resume operation soon while it will take some time for the international airport to restart its operations," said Chudal. "The tourism and civil aviation ministry will form an investigation panel which will find out the reason behind the crash."
Meanwhile, extreme weather conditions in parts of Nepal claimed lives of at least five people and another four have been reported missing.
Two shepherds were killed by hypothermia when they were entombed by heavy snowfall in the western district of Mustang, according to local deputy superintendent of police Govinda Prasad Pathak.
Seven tourists waiting out inclement weather in Lo Manthang, a remote town in Nepal’s Upper Mustang District, bordering the Tibet Autonomous Region, were reportedly rescued by a helicopter.
In Kalikot District, in Nepal’s mid-west, three were killed Tuesday morning after incessant rainfall caused a house to collapse, burying those inside alive.
Meanwhile, four youths remain missing in Bajura in Nepal’s far-west amid heavy snowfall. According to police inspector Amar Gopal Shrestha, the youths were unable to be located by a police search team after they went missing Monday evening.
Authorities fear that the inclement weather and heavy snowfall will result in a secondary set of dangers.
The water volume of one of the tributaries to Nepal’s largest river, the Karnali, is reported to have dropped by 80 percent, sparking fears that snow and ice upstream has dammed the river.
Villagers in the Karnali River Basin have been put on high flood alert.
The Limi Khola, the river suspected of being dammed, is in the remote Humla region, which is disposed to Glacial Lake Outburst Floods caused by the damming of glacial melt-water.
