Aug 20, 2018-The only Nepal-China link road currently in operation has been closed after the rain-swollen Gerkhu stream damaged a bridge at Trishuli-Betrawati road section on the Pasang Lhamu Highway in Nuwakot district on early Sunday morning.
Highway in Nuwakot district on early Sunday morning.
The floods triggered by heavy rains swept away the bridge linking Ward 1 and 10 of Bidur Municipality at around 1:30am. The bridge constructed some four
decades ago was the only motorable bridge that links Rasuwagadhi along the Nepal-China border with Kathmandu. The incident site is about one kilometre from Trishuli Bazaar.
Twelve workers staying in a hut near the bridge survived the incident as they fled on time. “Floodwaters entered the place where we were asleep at around 1:30am. We ran away and saved our lives,” said a worker.
With the disruption of vehicular movement along the highway, hundreds of passenger buses, containers and private vehicles have been stranded in the area. The traffic disruption has also stranded pilgrims heading towards Gosaikunda Lake in Rasuwa district. Gosaikunda Lake is the famous religious site where a grand annual fair is organised on the occasion of the Hindu festival Janai Purnima that falls on August 26 this year.The imports and exports of goods through Rasuwagadhi border point have come to a halt. The Rasuwagadhi customs point has been the only trading route linking Kathmandu with China after the Gorkha Earthquake in 2015 severely damaged the road at Tatopani transit point.“The Gerkhu stream is still flooding. It will take a couple of days to resume transportation through the road section,” said Superintendent of Police (SP) Basanta Bahadur Kunwar. Considering the risks, police have not allowed vehicles to move across the flooded stream. The local administration, meanwhile, is planning a temporary diversion road across the stream.
The Trishuli-Betrawati is a busy road section. According to Sambhu Bahadur Adhikari, chief at the District Traffic Police Office, some 3,000 small and big vehicles including goods carriers commute the road section daily.Transportation along the Syaphrubesi-Rasuwagadhi road section has been disrupted for past three weeks after the bridge over Timure Ghattekhola was damaged by floods. As the authorities have banned vehicles from crossing the bridge, traders have been using porters to carry goods across the stream.
Issuing a press statement on Sunday, the airline said the outstanding payments claimed by Caan are due to payments which were not made by AirAsia X’s former local partner in Nepal—Incentive Group of Companies (IGC) to Caan for at least six years ago where AirAsia X was not notified by Caan of these outstanding payments.
“While this late notification has caused AirAsia X to express grave concern over Caan’s accounting practices and management of its financial records, AirAsia X has been in direct contact with Caan through written and direct communication, as well as face-to-face meetings to resolve the issue,” the company press statement reads.
“The issue includes the recommendation that IGC be made direct liable for these long-outstanding payments.” The company has also urged that Caan open an investigation into incidences of bounced payments by IGC recently,” the statement said. According to Caan, a cheque of Rs75 million submitted by IGC was bounced.
“In any event, in the spirit of resolving the issue amicably, AirAsia X had remitted 3 tranches of payments to Caan with the latest payment having been made in July 2018,” the company said. “AirAsia X had incurred additional operational cost and resources to make these payments, which were made by AirAsia X in good faith even after Caan, had not taken any action against IGC despite AirAsia X’s recommendations to do so.”
The airline also said that the Flight D7 193 bound for Kuala Lumpur from Kathmandu on Friday was not halted and the flight in fact departed on time at 1445hrs local time.
However, Raj Kumar Chettri, general manager of TIA, had told the Post that the carrier deferred payment and that they were forced to halt its scheduled flight for 40 minutes on Friday.
TIA also through its tweet handle @TIACAO2 has informed that—“Today 2075/5/1 Air Asia X flight was withheld around half an hour by TIA management due outstanding sums payment delayed by Air's Asia X. After concrete commitment to pay within time frame the flight was released.”
Concrete bridge swept by flood in Barhabise
Vehicular movement has been disrupted and Tatopani border has been cut off from Barhabise following the incident.
The stream started spilling over after the landslide debris blocked the bridge. According to local Rajendra Sherstha, Panic-stricken people ran to safety after the bridge was swept at around 10 pm last night.
The Chinese government had constructed the 40-feet long bridge in 2024 BS. Mud and sands have piled up to five feet on the road, RSS reported.
Three excavators have been used to remove the landslide debris, police said. Engineer at the Road Division Office, Charikot, said preparation was underway to install a bailey bridge there.
Tourist arrivals in Nepal jumped 73.5 percent in July
Aug 19, 2018-Tourist arrivals to Nepal jumped 73.5 percent in the month of July, largely due to a sharp increase in the number of travellers from countries like India, China, the US and the UK, according to statistics released by Nepal Tourism Board (NTB).
The statistics show that Nepal received a whopping 73,285 international tourists in July—a time of the year that is considered to be an off-season for tourists due to the monsoons. The growth in the numbers has been particularly attributed to Indian pilgrims visiting Kailash Mansarovar in Tibet, via Nepal.
The statistics show that 18,385 Indian tourists visited Nepal via air transport, which is up 80.4 percent compared to the same period last year.
After India, Nepal received the highest number of visitors from China. The Chinese tourist numbers have more than doubled to 13,123 in the month of July. This is a 125.4 percent growth in comparison to the arrivals in the same month last year.
With July’s figures, the number of foreign tourists visiting Nepal in the first seven months (January–July) of 2018 reached 593,299, which is an increase of 18 percent as compared to the same period last year.
Similarly, overall arrivals from SAARC countries registered a growth of 66 percent, in comparison to the same month last year. However, arrivals from Bangladesh declined by nine percent.
Arrivals from Asia (countries other than SAARC) have also recorded a robust growth of 86.2 percent. Likewise, visitors from Japan and South Korea to Nepal also increased by 36 percent and 21.9 percent respectively.
An overall increase of 54.1 percent in July has been recorded from European source markets. Arrivals from the UK, Germany and Spain increased by 68.9 percent, 53.9 percent and 41.2 percent respectively. However, arrivals from Austria declined by 72.6 percent. Australia and New Zealand have also witnessed a tremendous growth of 113.9 percent and 75.2 percent in July as compared to the figures of 2017. The number of visitors from the US and Canada have also grown by 79.6 percent and 73.3 percent respectively.
The strong growth in the number of international arrivals to Nepal can be attributed to many reasons. One of the key reasons is the promotional programmes that have been organised by NTB to target travellers from countries like India and China. “Destination promotion, travel marts, sales missions, business to business (B2B) and business to consumers are the major programmes that have been continuously organised in major source markets,” the NTB said in a press statement.
Propelled by a steady economic growth and a burgeoning middle-class population, India and China have emerged as key players in the global tourism arena. An unprecedented growth in the outbound tourism sector of these two countries has been observed.
“In addition to neighbouring markets, the Asia Pacific region has seen rapid economic development in recent times. The positive growth in visitor arrivals from all major markets is highly encouraging and undoubtedly present significant opportunities to the travel and trade sector and to the entire country,” said Deepak Raj Joshi, chief executive officer of NTB. “We continue to work with the utmost conviction that tourism is fundamental to steering us towards a brighter future, where tourism contributes to a more responsible, sustainable and inclusive economy that benefits all levels of our society.”
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