Helicopter Carrying Relief Materials Crashes in Nepal, Killing Four
The aircraft belonged to Kathmandu-based Mountain Helicopters and crashed north of the capital in a forested area near Yamuna Balefi Village in the country’s Sindhupalchok district, police say.
Indian media quoted a senior official who said Nepalese troops recovered the bodies of three men and a woman from the crash site. The helicopter reportedly caught fire at some point.
The incident follows last month’s crash of a U.S. Marine Huey helicopter that had been deployed to the region to support humanitarian operations following a late-April 7.9-magnitude that killed thousands of people. After the chopper initially went missing, search crews found the crash site along with the bodies of six Marines and two Nepalese soldiers.
A United Nations official on Tuesday said up to 2.8 million Nepalese people are in need of humanitarian aid following the April 25 earthquake and its aftershocks, including more than 800,000 who live in remote, mountainous areas.
