On Sunday, up to 18,000 empty oxygen cylinders donated by China arrived by road at the Tatopani checkpoint in Sindhupalchok district.
Those cylinders, according to Ganesh Pandey, press coordinator for Deputy Prime Minister Ishwar Pokharel and coordinator of the Covid-19 Crisis Management Centre, will be brought to Kathmandu once the Chinese government returns them to Nepal.
As Nepal has been gripped by the second wave of Covid-19, there has been a high demand for oxygen cylinders to treat those who have been infected. Previously, 400 oxygen cylinders were flown from China to Nepal. According to Pandey, preparations are underway to ferry the remaining 1,600 cylinders from the 20,000 provided by China in grant assistance.
Meanwhile, the Nepal Airlines Corporation’s wide-body plane, which flew to China on Saturday, is returning 550 oxygen cylinders from there today.