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Rescuers in India's western Gujarat state are picking up dozens of exhausted and dehydrated birds dropping everyday as a scorching heatwave dries out water sources in the state's biggest city, veterinary doctors and animal rescuers say, Reuters reported.

Large swathes of South Asia are drying up in the hottest pre-summer months in recent years, prompting Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to warn of rising fire risks.

Doctors in an animal hospital managed by non-profit Jivdaya Charitable Trust in Ahmedabad said they have treated thousands of birds in the last few weeks, adding that rescuers bring dozens of high flying birds such as pigeons or kites everyday.

"This year has been one of the worst in the recent times. We have seen a 10% increase in the number of birds that need rescuing," Manoj Bhavsar, who works closely with the trust and has been rescuing birds for over a decade, according to Reuters.

Animal doctors at the trust-run hospital were seen feeding birds multi-vitamin tablets and injecting water into their mouths using syringes on Wednesday.

Health officials in Gujarat have issued advisories to hospitals to set up special wards for heat stroke and other heat-related diseases due to the rise in temperatures, Reuters reported.

At least 30 persons were injured when a bus met with an accident in Doti on Thursday.

The bus (SuPaPra 01 001 Kha 3108) belonging to the Malika Travels) was heading towards Bajura from Dhangadhi when the incident occurred at Sanagaun in Purbichauki Rural Municipality-4, Doti at around 6 am today, DSP Bhola Bhatta of the District Police Office, Doti said.

Nepal Army and Nepali Police personnel have been deployed to carry out rescue operations.

Among the injured, 16 are undergoing treatment at the District Hospital in Doti while 13 are receiving treatment at a local clinic, police said.

DSP Bhatta said that the bus driver fled the scene after the incident and they are searching for him.

The bus fell some 20 meters down the road, police said.

A powerful bomb exploded ahead of local level elections in Miklajung Rural Municipality, Morang on Wednesday.

Police suspect that the bomb may have been planted.

According to Madan Shrestha, a teacher at the  Saraswati Basis School, the blast was heard at around 11 pm yesterday.

Meanwhile, a suspicious object was found at Barkhe in Miklajung on Thursday.

A pressure cooker was found on the road around 50 meters from the school, this morning, DSP Deepak Shrestha of the District Police Office, Morang said.

Police suspect that the people who were against the elections may have detonated the bomb and placed a suspicious object on the road.

North Korea confirmed its first coronavirus infections of the pandemic Thursday after holding for more than two years to a widely doubted claim of a perfect record keeping out the virus that has spread to nearly every place in the world, Associated Press reported.

The official Korean Central News Agency said tests of samples collected Sunday from an unspecified number of people with fevers in the capital, Pyongyang, confirmed they were infected with the omicron variant. 

In response, leader Kim Jong Un called for a thorough lockdown of cities and counties and said workplaces should be isolated by units to block the virus from spreading, KCNA said.

The country’s population of 26 million is believed to be mostly unvaccinated, after its government shunned vaccines offered by the UN-backed COVAX distribution program, possibly because those have international monitoring requirements, according to the Associated Press.

Kim during a ruling party Politburo meeting called for officials to stabilize transmissions and eliminate the infection source as fast as possible, while also easing the inconveniences to the public caused by the virus controls. Kim said “single-minded public unity is the most powerful guarantee that can win in this anti-pandemic fight,” KCNA said.

Despite the decision to elevate anti-virus steps, Kim ordered officials to push ahead with scheduled construction, agricultural development and other state projects while bolstering the country’s defense postures to avoid any security vacuum. 

North Korea’s announcement of the infections came after NK News, a North Korea-focused news site, cited unidentified sources who said authorities had imposed a lockdown on Pyongyang residents. South Korea’s government said it couldn’t confirm the report.

It isn’t immediately clear how large the North’s outbreak is. The North will likely double down on lockdowns, even though the failure of China’s “zero-COVID” approach suggests that approach doesn’t work against the fast-moving omicron variant, said Leif-Eric Easley, a professor of international studies at Seoul’s Ewha Womans University. 

“For Pyongyang to publicly admit omicron cases, the public health situation must be serious,” Easley said. “This does not mean North Korea is suddenly going to be open to humanitarian assistance and take a more conciliatory line toward Washington and Seoul. But the Kim regime’s domestic audience may be less interested in nuclear or missile tests when the urgent threat involves coronavirus rather than a foreign military.”

Experts say a major COVID-19 outbreak would be devastating in North Korea because of the poor health care system and could possibly trigger instability when combined with other problems like serious food shortages, Associated Press reported. 

North Korea’s previous coronavirus-free claim had been disputed by many foreign experts. But South Korean officials have said North Korea had likely avoided a huge outbreak, in part because it instituted strict virus controls almost from the start of the pandemic.

Early in 2020 — before the coronavirus spread around the world — North Korea took severe steps to keep out the virus and described them as a matter of “national existence.” It quarantined people with symptoms resembling COVID-19, all but halted cross-border traffic and trade for two years, and is even believed to have ordered troops to shoot on sight any trespassers who crossed its borders.

The extreme border closures further shocked an economy already damaged by decades of mismanagement and US-led sanctions over its nuclear weapons and missile program, pushing Kim to perhaps the toughest moment of his rule since he took power in 2011. 

North Korea had been one of the last places in the world without an acknowledged COVID-19 case after the virus first detected in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019 spread to every continent including Antarctica. Turkmenistan, a similarly secretive and authoritarian nation in Central Asia, has reported no cases to the World Health Organization, though its claim also is widely doubted by outside experts. 

In recent months, some Pacific island nations that kept the virus out by their geographic isolation have recorded outbreaks. Only tiny Tuvalu, with a population around 12,000, has escaped the virus so far, while a few other nations – Nauru, Micronesia and Marshall Islands – have stopped cases at their borders and avoided community outbreaks, according to the Associated Press.