TAPLEJUNG, April 22: Authorities handed over the bodies of all four individuals who died in the Pathibhara accident on Monday morning to their families after completing postmortem examinations. The accident was caused by an electric shock when a sagging high-voltage power line fell onto a vehicle.
DSP Rabi Rawal, Chief of the District Police Office in Taplejung, said the medical team conducted postmortems on three victims on Monday evening and on the fourth on Tuesday morning. The police handed over the bodies of 16-year-old Aadhya Acharya of Lalitpur Metropolitan City Ward No. 10, and her maternal grandfather Binod Paudel (70) and grandmother Sarita Paudel (69) of Bhadrapur Municipality Ward No. 15, Jhapa, to their family on Monday evening.
Land fragmentation halted in six local bodies of Taplejung
The police handed over the body of Durga Bhattarai, a 42-year-old resident of Furumbu in Fungling Municipality Ward No. 10, Taplejung, to his family on Tuesday after conducting a postmortem examination.
The incident took place on Monday morning when Bhattarai and five others were traveling toward Pathibhara for a pilgrimage in a vehicle (Me 1 Ja 3011). A sagging electric wire fell onto the vehicle, triggering a short circuit that set the vehicle on fire.
The fire killed four people, including the driver. Authorities provided initial treatment to the two survivors — 45-year-old Sabina Acharya and her 10-year-old son Abhimaya Acharya of Lalitpur Metropolitan City Ward No. 10 — at Taplejung District Hospital before airlifting them to HAMS Hospital in Kathmandu for further treatment.
