KATHMANDU - All 24 people on board a helicopter chartered by conservation group WWF in Nepal were killed after the aircraft crashed in bad weather two days ago, officials said on Monday.

An MI-17 helicopter, similar to the aircraft which went missing in Nepal, is seen in east Nepal in this 2005 file photograph. REUTERS/Gopal Chitrakar/File

The wreckage of the Russian-made helicopter was found earlier on Monday by a Nepali army team after incessant rains and fog had hampered rescue efforts.

The army helicopter found the crashed aircraft about 2 km southwest of Ghunsa, a village in Taplejung district, about 300 km (190 miles) east of the capital, Kathmandu.

"There are no survivors," Purushottam Shakya, who coordinates rescues from Kathmandu airport, told Reuters.

Officials said the helicopter was found broken into pieces. Plans were being made to recover bodies and more helicopters were being rushed to Taplejung, they added.

Some rescuers had also reached the site by land.

Of the 20 passengers and four crew, 17 were Nepalis. Others included a Finnish diplomat, two Americans, a Canadian and an Australian, as well as two Russians.

Nepal's junior forest minister, Gopal Rai, his wife, Finnish Charge d'Affaires Pauli Mustonen, and the deputy director of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in Nepal, Margaret Alexander, were among them.

Other passengers were conservationists working for the WWF and two Nepali television journalists. The passengers had attended the handover of a WWF project to the local community and were on their way back.

The bodies would have to be carried for two hours to Phere, the nearest point where helicopters could land, said another rescue official at Kathmandu airport.

"Bodies have been found. Only one body is in a better shape and can be recognized. Pieces of bodies are scattered over a steep slope near a gorge," he said.

LOUD NOISE

The search for the missing helicopter had been hampered by bad weather which prevented rescue helicopters taking off. The weather had also hampered a ground search for the helicopter that had been chartered by WWF.

The area, located above 3,500 meters (11,480 feet), is very remote and with few villages, in a rugged landscape dominated by ravines and gorges.

The helicopter left Ghunsa village at about noon (0615 GMT) but never arrived at its destination in Taplejung town, a 20-minute flight.

Officials said on Sunday villagers had reported hearing a loud noise in a gorge soon after the helicopter left Ghunsa, a region that is home to the world's third-highest peak, Mount Kanchenjunga.

Eighteen people, including 13 Germans, were killed when a commercial plane crashed in the hills of western Nepal in 2002.

Himalayan Nepal, home to Mount Everest, has a poorly developed road network and many tourists and officials travel by helicopters or small planes to remote mountainous areas.

© Reuters 2006

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