Kathmandu, April 14:

After visiting a few sites hit by Tuesday’s freak hailstorm yesterday, Dala Ram Pradhan, convener of the team formed by the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives (MoAC) to assess the damage, said that the damage was “extensive”.

“We found that the damage to wheat crop at the VDCs including Bhadrabas, Danchhi, Mulpani, and Alekot ranges between 75 and 100 per cent,” Pradhan said today, adding that the team will visit different sites of Bhaktapur tomorrow.

The team was constituted on Thursday evening and includes the representatives of Department of Agriculture and different divisions of the MoAC.

He said the team was in its preliminary phase of study and the reports from other districts, including Gulmi, Kaski, Lamjung and Tanahun are coming. Quoting senior citizens he met while visiting the affected sites in Kathmandu, Pradhan said they had never experienced such hailstorm during their lifetime. “The locals also informed that many birds and some animals were also killed by the hailstorm,” he said.

Pradhan, who is a joint secretary at the MoAC, said different vegetables including potatoes were also damaged by the hailstorm.