Public holiday today to mourn deaths of passengers on board in Yeti Airlines plane crash

KATHMANDU, Jan 16: The government has declared a public holiday on Monday to mourn the deaths of passengers who died in  Yeti Airlines ATR 72 plane crash.
A Cabinet meeting held earlier took a decision to this effect, according to Bishnu Poudel, the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance.
So far, 40 dead bodies have been recovered from the accident site.
There were a total of 68 passengers in the plane including 53 Nepali nationals, five Indian, four Russian, one from Ireland, one Australian, one Argentenian, two Korean and one French nationals.
It is still unclear what caused the crash.
Mobile phone footage showed the Yeti Airlines flight rolling sharply as it approached the airport. There were 72 passengers and crew on board the domestic flight.
The Yeti Airlines flight from Kathmandu to the tourist town of Pokhara left the Nepalese capital just after 10:30 (04:45 GMT) for what should have been a short trip.
It had 68 passengers on board, including at least 15 foreign nationals, and four crew members.
Of the passengers, 53 were said to be Nepalese. There were five Indian, four Russians and two Koreans on the plane. There was also one passenger each from Ireland, Australia, Argentina and France among others.