Rajbiraj, January 8

With three more cold-related deaths over the past 24 hours, the total toll from the cold wave in Saptari over the past one week has reached 17.

According to police, the latest victims of excessive cold are Prem Kumar Majhi, 60, of Khoriya, Khadak Municipality-7; 70-year-old Narayan Mukhiya of Tilathi Koiladi Rural Municipality-4 and seven-year-old Jitendra Sada of Shambhunath Municipality-2.  A first-grader at the local Aadharbhut Primary School of Kanakpatti, Jitendra died at home last night.

Earlier, 14 persons including a seven-month-old child had lost their lives due to sudden drop in temperature caused by the cold wave in the district.

The weather condition, however, improved providing some respite with scant sunshine today morning.

In the wake of the excessive cold, police had made arrangements to ignite bonfire at around 100 places to give the cold-affected people some respite.

“As the cold was too much, we had arranged to light up fires at places such as Rupani, Hanumanagar, Bharadaha, Pati, Bhediya, Kanchanpur, Mahuli, Kalyanpur, Theliya and Sakhiya,” said DSP Dhruv Kumar Shrestha.