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Two sisters died and their father sustained injuries when a tipper hit a motorbike they were riding on at Sundarijal in Gokarneshwor Municipality, Kathmandu on Wednesday.

According to the Metropolitan Police Circle, Boudha, the deceased have been identified as Shritisi Tamang (8) and Shreya Tamang (4).

They were heading towards the school with their father Rohan Tamang in the motorbike when the incident occurred, police said.

The tipper (Ba 4 Kha 6965) hit the two-wheeler (Ba 52 Pa 8733) this morning.

Rohan, who was injured in the incident, is undergoing treatment at the Attarkhel-based Nepal Medical College.

Police said that they are searching for the tipper driver who fled the scene after the incident.

Sri Lankan waiter Abdul Razzak hoped to supplement his wages by moonlighting as an Uber Eats food courier using his friend’s motorcycle. It didn’t work out – instead of doing deliveries, he ended up stuck in queues to buy gasoline, Aljazeera reported.

Beset by fuel shortages, power cuts and soaring food prices, many Sri Lankans are being forced to take on second jobs as millions struggle to survive the Indian Ocean nation’s worst economic meltdown since independence in 1948.

“We have never come across this kind of economic hardship,” said Razzak, 53.

“Sometimes my wife and I go hungry so that we can feed our children two meals. It used to be three.”

Historically weak government finances, badly timed tax cuts and the COVID-19 pandemic, which hit the vital tourism industry, have decimated the economy, triggering a currency crisis that has disrupted fuel imports and caused skyrocketing food prices, according to Aljazeera.

"We can’t survive here any more,” said Indika Perera, 43, a security guard at a private company in the main city of Colombo who earns 42,000 rupees ($155) a month.

Groceries that cost Perera about 10,000 rupees a month before the coronavirus struck, now cost half his salary.

He said he struggled to feed his three children anything more than plain rice once a day. On good days, he gets them a small fish, their only source of protein, he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation at his one-room home.

“Sometimes my wife and I starve,” said Perera, who tried a short stint as a waiter for a few nights but soon gave up after he fell asleep on his day job.

Tension over shortages has led to sporadic violence among residents jostling to buy fuel and other essential goods, Aljazeera reported.

Every day, motorists line up at fuel pumps at the break of dawn and wait hours until they open. Some leave jerry cans and gas cylinders to hold their spots in snaking queues as they wait their turns in the shade.

Police said a man was stabbed to death on March 21 in an argument with the driver of a three-wheeled vehicle while, last week, four elderly men died while queuing to buy fuel in the sweltering heat.

The military posted soldiers at hundreds of gas stations on March 22 after complaints of stockpiling and inefficient distribution, and farmers and fishermen have joined a growing wave of protests.

Without enough dollars to pay for paper and ink, authorities indefinitely postponed term tests for millions of students, according to Aljazeera.

“This is unprecedented. Unlike before, we can’t ask people to donate money because everybody is hit by this crisis in one way or the other,” said N M Ameen, president of Muslim Council of Sri Lanka, which has been helping the poor with donations.

Both domestic and international flights have at the Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA) have been affected since Monday due to poor visibility.

According to the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN), the flights to and from the TIA have been affected due to poor visibility. 

TIA spokesperson Teknath Sitoula said that the weather has been hazy since Monday morning and the takeoff and landing would be regular once the weather improves. RSS

The weather will be partly to generally cloudy in most parts of the country with chances of rain and gusty winds at some places due to the influence of the Westerly low pressure system.

The Department of Hydrology and Meteorology stated that there is possibility of intermittent rain and gusty wind along with thunder and lightning at some places of the hilly region of Province no 1, Bagmati province and Gandaki province, urging for adopting necessary alertness.

It will be partly to generally cloudy in the hilly region of Province no 1, Bagmati province and Gandaki province, and generally fair in the rest of the country tonight with chances of light rain and thunder and lightning at one or two places of the hilly region in Province no 1 and Gandaki province, the Department said. RSS