Nepal church building collapse kills 23

Residents gather after a temporary church made of bamboo hut collapsed in Dharan, some 200kms east of Kathmandu yesterday. The church building collapsed during a Christian convention in eastern Nepal, killing at least 23 people and injuring dozens of others. Photo: AFP

A church building collapsed during a Christian convention in eastern Nepal, killing at least 23 people and injuring dozens more, police said yesterday.
Around 1,500 Christians had gathered in the town of Dharan for the meeting when a makeshift three-storey structure built to accommodate participants gave way at about midnight after hours of heavy rainfall, they said.
"The participants were preparing to sleep when the wall collapsed. Most of the victims were on the ground floor of the building," police inspector Mohan Bikram Dahal told AFP.
"The wall was made of bamboo and it could not withstand the weight of the people."
Many of the dead were women and children and at least one of the victims was from neighbouring India, police said.
The El-Shaddai Church, an international Christian organisation with a base in the northern Indian town of Darjeeling, was holding its annual convention in Dharan, around 200 miles (320 kilometres) east of Nepal's capital, Kathmandu.
Police said many Indian Christians had travelled to the Zion Prayer House, a church in Dharan, for the meeting, and the bamboo structure that collapsed had been built to house the overspill.