New Delhi: In a rare incident, at least 16 people from a village in Nepal died in a snowfall while collecting health supplement known as Himalayan Viagra.
"Sixteen people were killed after heavy snowfall Monday night covered their camp," a news agency quoted a police officer as saying.
The villagers had ventured into the remote mountainous district 240 kilometres northwest of Kathmandu to collect yarshagumba (cordyceps sinensis).
"The site where the accident happened is very rugged and is a four-day walk from Dunai (district headquarters) so police have yet to reach the site," the officer added.
Yarshagumba, the rare species only found in meadows above 3,500 metres and forms when a parasitic fungus lodges itself in caterpillars and slowly kills them.
It has been highly valued as a health tonic and aphrodisiac in traditional Chinese medicine for centuries and can fetch up to 3,000 dollars a kilogram - a small fortune in impoverished Nepal.
Thousands of villagers in remote Himalayan areas leave their homes to collect the tonic during the harvesting season in May and June.
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