Kathmandu, March 28

Nepal Tourism Board (NTB) has continued the rescue flights today for stranded passengers across the country.

A total of eight flights from Lukla landed at the Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA) this morning carrying 142 tourists. Of the total flights, five were operated by Nepal Airlines Corporation (NAC), two by Tara Air, and one by Summit Air, as per NTB. Likewise, Kailash Helicopter also operated two chartered flights and rescued eight tourists from Lukla.

“We rescued 140 travellers from Pokhara today via air route while the German Embassy had arranged three chartered flights through which a total of 174 passengers were rescued,” said Shradha Shrestha, brand manager of NTB.

The German nationals rescued from Pokhara today will be in Kathmandu for the next few days and the German Embassy has made arrangements for their food and accommodation, said Lila Baniya, NTB official.

Shrestha said that five tourists from Taplejung have also been rescued today via a chopper.

Meanwhile, starting from today NTB is rescuing tourists via land route as well. “We are operating night bus from tonight to bring tourists from Pokhara to Kathmandu,” she said. “Tonight five buses will leave Pokhara carrying around 150 tourists for Kathmandu.”

Establishing a website strandedinnepal.com, NTB along with other stakeholders is conducting rescue activities for stranded tourists in Nepal.

Amid this, one flight of Qatar Airways departed from Nepal to Germany carrying around 300 German passengers at 11:47 am while another one with 305 Germans and other European passengers took off at 12:46 pm.

The Nepal government has imposed a nationwide lockdown starting for March 24 for one week as a precautionary measure to stop the coronavirus from spreading in the country.