A small plane crashed while flying in poor visibility over mountainous terrain in Nepal on Wednesday killing all 23 people on board, the country’s aviation minister has confirmed.

One passenger was confirmed to be from China and another a Kuwaiti national. All the others were from Nepal and two were children.

The plane lost contact with air traffic control eight minutes after it left the western town of Pokhara on its way to Jomsom on Wednesday morning.

The police chief at Jomsom, Harihari Yogi, said they had reports from local villagers of hearing a loud explosion near the small village of Rupshe and attempts were being made to reach it.

Jomsom, in the Himalayas, is about 20 minutes’ flight from Pokhara, which lies 200km (125 miles) west of Kathmandu. It is popular for both foreign tourists visiting the Mount Annapurna and Mustang region for trekking, and for Hindu pilgrims visiting the Muktinath temple.

Airport official Yogendra Kuwar said there were no landing strips between the two airports, and that the plane was believed to have crashed.

Nepal, which is still reeling from a devastating earthquake last April, has suffered a number of air disasters in recent years, dealing a blow to its tourist industry.

Most have been attributed to inexperienced pilots, poor management and inadequate maintenance.

The country’s aviation sector has come under fire from international authorities and in 2013 the European Union banned all Nepalese airlines from flying there.

Tara Air is a subsidiary of Yeti Airlines, a privately owned domestic carrier founded in 1998, which runs a service to many remote destinations across Nepal.

It suffered its last fatal accident in 2010 when a plane chartered by a group of Bhutanese tourists crashed into a mountainside in eastern Nepal.

(The Guardian)