Submit your Article

A Korean national was arrested in possession of 716 grams of musk pod from the Tribhuvan International Airport on Tuesday.

Police detained Jung Joon Jun, who was about to board a flight to Korea, from the TIA yesterday.

DSP Bhim Prasad Dhakal, Chief at the TIA Security Office, said that police found the pod which the Korean national had hidden inside his shoes in a form of dust while carrying out a body check on him at the luggage checking area.

He has been sent to Division Forest Office, Hattisar, Kathmandu for necessary investigation and action, police said.

Cholera has been detected in 14 persons in the Kathmandu Valley.

Dr Sangita Mishra, spokesperson at the Ministry of Health and Population, said that 14 persons have been diagnosed with cholera.

During a press conference organized in the Capital on Wednesday, she said that the cholera-causing E coli bacteria were found in 12 out of 18 samples collected from Lalitpur.

The Department of Epidemiology and Disease Control Division has urged the general public to be vigilant to control cholera.

Cholera is an acute diarrheal illness caused by infection of the intestine with Vibrio cholerae bacteria. People can get sick when they eat food or drink water contaminated with cholera bacteria. The infection is often mild or without symptoms, but can sometimes be severe and life-threatening.

Sixty major avalanches have been recorded in Nepal’s mountains over the past century, most of them in the Everest region.

Studies show these incidents were directly related to climate change and increasing human activities. The makeup of Everest is changing—and fast.

“Over the years, I have witnessed many glacial streams form and crevasses grow wider in the Everest region,” mountaineer Onchhu Sherpa says. “The base camp itself is riddled with holes and fissures.”

Global warming has increased the risk of avalanches in Nepal’s mountains in recent decades. The study ‘Glacial Hazards and Avalanches in High Mountains of Nepal’s Himalaya’ suggests that climate change and human activities have added to the challenges of preserving Everest.

Sherpa says these changes are unnatural and deeply troubling, but Nepal is still not doing enough to stop the impending disaster.

The consequences of these changes will mostly affect the life and livelihood of people residing in the lower Everest regions.

“We don’t know when a devastating avalanche will hit the area. It is the locals who will bear the brunt because tourists and mountaineers visit the region only during the climbing season,” says Sherpa.

The Everest basecamp is also not safe anymore and the government is planning to move its starting point around 200 meters below the current site.

“The current basecamp located close to the Khumbu glacier is getting increasingly unstable. By relocating the basecamp, we hope to lower the melting process of the glacier,” says Taranath Adhikari, director-general of the department.

The Everest basecamp is located at an altitude of 5,364m. Nearly 1,500 people camp up there during the climbing season. Discarded food packets, climbing gear and other solid waste litter the place, which is also a cause for concern.

“How can the basecamp remain intact when you have hundreds of people camping there for days?” asks Lamakaji Sherpa, a tourism entrepreneur based at Namche.

Karma Sherpa, a tourism expert, says there used to be a time when mountaineers and their guides had to remove a thick cover of snow at the basecamp to set up camp. “It isn’t so these days. These days the basecamp is largely naked and full of holes,” he says.

Scientists say while avalanches are caused by various natural factors like snowstorms and heavy snowfalls, there is no doubt that climate change and human activities have increased their frequency.

Between 1922 and 2020, a total of 372 people lost their lives in mountain avalanches in Nepal, and of them 324 were in the Everest region. 

Nepal reported 62 new Covid-19 cases on Wednesday.

According to the Ministry of Health and Population, 1, 008 swab samples were tested in the RT-PCR method, of which 51 returned positive. Likewise, 612 people underwent antigen tests, of which 11 were tested positive.

The Ministry said that no one died of virus in the last 24 hours. The Ministry said that 19 infected people recovered from the disease.

As of today, there are 261 active cases in the country.