Rescue teams in Nepal stepped up their search for a helicopter chartered by conservation group World Wildlife Fund (WWF) with 24 people on board after it went missing during bad weather, officials said yesterday.

The Russian-built MI-17 helicopter disappeared on Saturday in Taplejung district, a remote mountainous area 300 km (190 miles) east of the capital, Kathmandu, after losing radio contact. Among those aboard were a senior US aid official, a Finnish diplomat and a Nepalese minister.

Army and civilian helicopters and ground rescue teams began combing the forested hills. The aircraft was carrying seven foreigners and 17 Nepalese nationals. ?Five helicopters have already started looking for the missing helicopter,? Bimalesh Lal Karna, a search and rescue coordinator, told Reuters. ?About 90 army and police rescuers as well as villagers are also walking toward the remote area to conduct the ground search.?

Karna said the remote location, which is largely inaccessible with no roads or paths, as well as monsoon rains were hampering rescue efforts. The WWF said seven of its staff were among the missing, three from WWF-Nepal, two from WWF-UK and two from WWF-US. Most of the seven were Nepali but included a joint Swiss-Australian national, a Canadian and an American.

Reward for information

The group said a taskforce formed by the Nepali government, comprising the army and police, was coordinating the search. ?Until we receive definite confirmation, WWF Nepal still holds the status of the helicopter as missing and we hope for the safe return of all on board,? the group said in a statement on their Web site www.wwfnepal.org. ?Search and rescue missions are ongoing, both aerially and on foot, but the situation has been made difficult due to continuing rain and poor visibility,? it said.

Nepal?s tourism minister Pradip Gyanwali said the government would give $ 2 700 as reward to anyone providing information about the missing aircraft. The helicopter, with 20 passengers and four crew, left Ghunsa village at 6 h 15 GMT but never arrived at its destination in Taplejung town, a 20-minute flight.

The passengers, which included diplomats, conservationists and government officials, attended the handover of a WWF project to the local community and were on they way back. It was raining heavily in the area where the aircraft disappeared, airport officials involved in the rescue operation said.

Karna said some reports suggested the helicopter could have crashed, but there was no confirmation. ?Villagers say they heard a loud noise in a gorge soon after the helicopter had left,? Karna said. ?We have no confirmation whether it had crashed. No one has been able to reach the spot yet.? Nepal?s forest minister Gopal Rai and his wife, Finland?s Charge d?Affaires Pauli Mustonnen and deputy director of the US Agency for International Development in Nepal, Margaret Alexander, were on board.

Two of the crew were Russians. There are more than a dozen private airlines in Nepal, which has poor roads and some of the world?s highest peaks. Eighteen people, including 13 Germans, were killed when a private airliner crashed in the hills of western Nepal in 2002.

Gopal SHARMA