A family has paid tribute to a “loved” British traveller who was killed in Nepal when a tourist bus fell 200 metres from a mountain, killing 19 people on board.
Dominic Stewart, 23, was on the bus from Pokhara to Kathmandu in the early hours of Monday morning when it lost control and veered off a road in the Himalayan foothills into the bank of the Trishuli River.
He was headed to the capital after completing the Annapurma Circuit, a popular hiking route in Nepal, and was due to celebrate his 24th birthday next month, his family told The Telegraph.
“He was loved by everybody he met,” his father, Mike, told the newspaper. His mother, Jane, said: “He was our baby. He was the baby of six. He was my husband’s best friend.”
The family said Mr Stewart, who was known to friends as Dom, had lived his entire life in Exeter and was planning to study finance and accountancy at university in Bristol.
They paid tribute to a “very loving and caring young man who was happiest trekking”, as reported by ITV.
The family said that Mr Stewart had arrived in Nepal last month after travelling through Afghanistan and Turkmenistan.
He was among 44 people on board the bus to the capital when it lost control on the Prithvi highway at around 1.30am on Monday.
Nepalese police say they have identified the bodies of all 19 victims, including a 40-year-old woman from China and a 32-year-old man from India.
Mr Stewart’s body was to be handed over to the British embassy on Tuesday, authorities said.
A 27-year-old woman from New Zealand and a Chinese national were among 25 people injured, who are now being treated at hospitals in Kathmandu, a statement from the police said.
Rescuers worked through the night to reach survivors trapped in the wreckage, but were hindered by a lack of equipment, police said.
Superintendent Sumit Khadka told the RSS news agency: “We did not have any equipment that could immediately lift or cut [through metal]. We spent a long time consoling victims.”
Mohan Prasad Neupane, information officer at the district administration office, said the rescue operation had been completed by dawn on Tuesday.
The British foreign office told The Independent they were supporting the family of a British man who has died in Nepal and are in contact with the authorities.
The government said it had ordered an investigation.
Road accidents are common in mostly mountainous Nepal where the conditions of roads are poor. Hundreds die in road crashes in Nepal annually.
In July 2024, two buses with more than 50 people on board fell off the highway into the same river following a landslide.
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