NEW DELHI: Fifteen Indian tourists had booked two rooms at the Panorama Resort at Daman in Nepal’s Makwanpur district late on Monday night. Eight of them, four adults and four children, were found unconscious and later pronounced dead by doctors at HAMS hospital in Kathmandu.

The Tourism Minister of the southern Indian state of Kerala said that instructions have been issued to the police chief of the state to contact his Nepal Police counterpart and coordinate with them to bring home the bodies of the deceased tourists.

Kerala Tourism Minister Kadakampally Surendran: As soon as the shocking news of the death of 8 tourists from Kerala, in a hotel room in Nepal’s Daman reached us, the state police chief was instructed to contact the Nepal police and take necessary action. (file pic) https://t.co/GlbxCFeTqh pic.twitter.com/UVu8rxogMF

— ANI (@ANI) January 21, 2020

Indian External Affairs Minister Dr. Subrahmaniam Jaishankar expressed distress over the tragic news and added that officials from the Indian Mission in Nepal were providing necessary assistance at the hospital.

​The eight Indians were initially found unconscious at a resort in Makwanpur district on Tuesday morning. They were airlifted to the Hams Hospital in Kathmandu, where doctors pronounced them dead.

Police in Makwanpur said resort staff had contacted them as soon as they discovered the Indian tourists unconscious in their room. Police said the victims had been unconscious due to asphyxiation.

Police said, the tourists might have used gas heaters to warm their room, which could have suffocated them to death, adding that the incident was being investigated.

(Agencies)