A 17-year-old boy has gone missing after he fell into the Mahakali river while crossing the river using an improvised cable crossing, locally known as tuin.

Sachin Budhathoki, a resident of Byas Rural Municipality in Darchula district, plunged into the river after the tuin snapped at Dumling in Byas-2 on Wednesday. The incident took place while Budhathoki was returning home from a neighbouring Indian town.

According to Dhiran Singh Budhathoki, the ward chairman of Byas Rural Municipality-2, Budgathoki had gone to Garwadhar Bazaar in Dharchula, India, to buy cooking oil. According to him, the tragic incident took place as a wooden pole supporting the tuin collapsed. The incident site is about 45 km north of Khalanga, the district headquarters of Darchula.

Security personnel and the locals are searching for the body of the missing person, said the ward chief.

Hundreds of people in the area go to India to buy basic essentials, get treatment for minor illnesses or injuries, and earn their livelihood.

On July 30 last year, Jaya Singh Dhami, 33, from Khangdang Mal of Byas Rural Municipality-2 fell into the Mahakali river after Indian security personnel allegedly untied the cable of the tuin Dhami was using to cross the river.

The local people of Byas and other remote villages of Darchula, a hill district of Sudurpaschim Province, risk their lives daily to cross the Mahakali river through cable crossings for a lack of suspension bridges in the area. Accidents and deaths while crossing the river using tuins, wooden boats, tyre tubes, and wooden logs are reported every year.

The KP Sharma Oli government in 2015 had pledged to replace all tuin crossings in the country with suspension bridges but the people of Darchula have yet to see this plan come to fruition.