Eight tourists from Kerala, including four children, died on Tuesday after they fell unconscious due to a possible gas leak in their room at a resort in Daman in Makwanpur district of Nepal. According to sources, they were part of a 19-member tourist group that had checked into the Everest Panorama resort at Daman, a popular tourist destination in the Himalayan country.
The deceased have been identified as Prabin Kumar Nair (39), Saranya (34), Ranjith Kumar T B (39), Indu Ranjith (34), Sreebadra (9), Abhinav Surya (9), Abhi Nair (7) and Vaishnav Ranjith (2). The Indian nationals were airlifted to HAMS hospital where they were pronounced dead on arrival, Superintendent of Police Sushil Singh Rathore of District Police Office, Makwanpur said. "They were using a gas heater in the room; they would have suffocated," he said.
According to The Himalayan Times, the group — travelling to Pokhara from Kerala — were returning home. On the way, they had stopped at Everest Panorama Resort in Daman on Monday night. According to the manager at the resort, the guests turned on a gas heater to keep themselves warm. Although they had booked a total of four rooms, eight of them stayed in one room and others were in another room, the manager said, adding that all the windows and the door of the room were bolted from inside.
They were found unconscious in the suite by the hostel staff, but had died by the time they were shifted to hospital, reports say. Police suspect that they might have passed out due to lack of ventilation. The room had poor ventilation as all the windows were shut in the winter night.
