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Twelve people have been killed after a bus carrying Polish pilgrims veered off a road in Croatia on Saturday and ended up in a ditch, BBC reported.

All 32 surviving passengers are said to be injured, 19 of them seriously.

The trip, organised by the Brotherhood of St Joseph Catholic group, included three priests and six nuns. They were travelling to Medjugorje, a Catholic shrine in Bosnia.

The passengers were all Polish adults, said the Polish Foreign Ministry.

The bus left from the Polish city of Czestochowa on Friday night following a prayer service. The passengers were from various regions of Poland, the foreign ministry said.

The accident happened at around 05:40 local time (04:50 GMT) when the bus they were travelling in veered off the A4 road between Jarek Bisaski and Podvorec, north-east of Zagreb.

Poland's justice minister and prosecutor general have ordered the Warsaw Prosecutors Office to launch an investigation into the cause of the tragedy, and two Polish ministers are heading to Croatia in the wake of the incident, according to BBC.

It was initially reported that 11 people had been killed, but one more person died later in hospital. 

"Some of the injured passengers are fighting for their lives," Croatian Interior Minister Davor Bozinovic said.

Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković expressed his condolences to the families of the victims, adding in a post on Twitter that emergency services were doing all they could to help. 

Pilgrimages to the small town of Medjugorje are very popular in Poland following reports that local children saw a vision of the Virgin Mary there in the 1980s, BBC reported.

Slumping foreign reserves have raised fears that Nepal could be another Sri Lanka in the making. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has increased the cost of imports, saddling Nepal’s economy with galloping inflation.

According to the World Bank, exporting countries such as Vietnam, Thailand, and Mexico are seeing significant decline in their manufacturing capacity, particularly in energy-intensive sectors, as a result of the war. Crop exporters such as Turkey, Brazil, and India, as well as fossil fuel exporters like Nigeria and Middle-East countries are also facing difficulty with exports.

Analyzing the data from the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Supplies, Nepal gets almost two-thirds of the goods—from petroleum to cereals—from India. With India itself grappling with the economic jolt dealt by the Russia-Ukraine war, Nepal is not just importing goods but also inflation. Currently, every exporting country that Nepal relies on has been facing a price hike, which automatically drives up the import rates. 

Looking at the data, Nepal’s import bill seems to be increasing in the alternate years we tracked, starting from the fiscal year 2009/10. The increment started well ahead of the Russian-Ukraine war. The war only acted as a catalyst to push Nepal towards an economic crisis.

The government has enforced restrictions on the import of luxury goods to maintain the country’s dwindling foreign currency reserves, but it continues to import the essentials like petroleum and cereals, as well as raw materials like iron and steel at increased rates. 

Easier to import goods than manufacture them in Nepal

Pabitra Bajracharya, President, Nepal Retailers Association 

Although we can see that the import cost has reduced significantly in 2020, it was a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. The import rate, without a doubt, will escalate in the coming years. One of the solutions to reducing imports is promoting domestic goods. But the policy for domestic production is not favorable for investors as well as industry owners. 

Our policies have made it easier to import goods rather than manufacture them within the country, increasing the country’s dependency on foreign goods. The reason for this is the higher cost of manufacturing in Nepal. 

Moreover, importing raw materials, ensuring the manufacture of final goods and hoping to make profit out of them are tedious processes. It is far easier to import, which also ensures profit for a lot of businesspersons. 

There is also the insecurity of not being able to attract an adequate number of buyers. This insecurity is driving up imports and discouraging local manufacturing. 

The constant increase in the import cost seen over the last decade might be pushing Nepal towards a devastating economic crisis. The Russia-Ukraine war has hugely affected the import rate. 

If we do not proceed with caution, Nepal will become the next Sri Lanka before we know it. 

A strong tremor was felt in Kathmandu on Saturday morning.

At least 14 people were killed and around 40 others injured after a fire swept through a nightclub in Chonburi province in south-eastern Thailand, BBC reported.

The fire broke out at 01:00 local time on Friday (18:00 GMT Thursday) at the Mountain B nightspot in Sattahip district, police said.

Footage shows people screaming as they flee, some with clothes on fire. 

The cause of the fire is not clear, with rescuers saying flammable material on the walls may have exacerbated it. 

The venue in Chonburi, a province located 150km (90 miles) south of Bangkok, was a single-storey complex measuring 4,800 square metres (51,660 square feet).

Firefighters battled for more than two hours to bring the fire under control, local media reported. The blaze apparently broke out during a live music performance at the venue, according to the mother of one of the music performers who died in the incident.

Bodies of the victims were mostly found near the entrance and in the bathrooms. Others were found near the DJ booth. 

So far, all those who died are believed to be Thai nationals. 

Officials from the Sawang Rojanathammasathan Rescue Foundation said flammable acoustic foam on the club's walls might have accelerated the speed at which the fire tore through the venue. 

Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha on Friday ordered an investigation into the fire, and said that families of the victims would receive aid from authorities. He also urged entertainment venues nationwide to ensure they had proper emergency exits and safety measures in place.

Officials said the venue had been turned from a restaurant into a nightclub and was likely operating without permission, according to BBC.

This is not the first time a deadly fire has broken out in a Thai nightclub. 

In 2009, more than 60 people died in Bangkok after a fire spread at the Santika Club in the early hours of New Year's Day. Two men, including the owner of the club, were jailed in 2011.

And a fire at a nightclub in the popular Thai tourist destination of Phuket in 2012 killed four people and injured about a dozen others.