Nepal goverment hands over 13 bodies of passengers killed in plane crash

The Nepal government on Tuesday afternoon handed over dead bodies of 13 passengers who were killed in Sunday's plane crash to the respective family members, officials said. Officials from Nepal Airlines Corporation (NAC) said the dead bodies of five passengers, however, could not be handed over because the family members of the deceased could not manage to come to receive the remains. In a tragic incident, a twin otter owned by NAC had been found crashed in Nepal's hilly region on Monday, some 20 hours after it had gone missing. "We have handed over bodies of 13 passengers including those of three crew members to their family members," Ram Hari Sharma, NAC spokesperson, told Xinhua. "Some of bodies have been taken directly to Pashupathi crematorium for final rites." He said as the family members of four passengers are from Jumla, some 353 kilometers west of Nepal's capital, and could not come to Kathmandu immediately to receive the bodies, "We will hand over the bodies to them tomorrow once they come to claim for the bodies. " In the case of the dead body of a Danish citizen, IM Matheisen, officials said his wife asked them to keep the body at hospital for some days until she come to Nepal from Denmark. "Following the request of his wife, we have managed to keep the body at the hospital," Raju Lal Shrestha, director at NEA, told Xinhua by phone from Kathmandu's Teaching Hospital where the post mortem upon the dead bodies had been carried out. After tedious efforts and much delay, the government officials and security personnel had finally airlifted the dead bodies of all passengers to Kathmandu on Monday afternoon from the crash site and had been taken to the hospital for autopsy. The government has also formed a four-member probe committee to investigate upon the cause behind Sunday's twin otter crash in the remote Himalayan country. Officials at the NAC said once the probe report is out, the government will distribute compensation to the families of the deceased.