A freak storm tore down houses and overturned cars and trucks as it swept across southern Nepal  killing at least 27 people and leaving more than 600 injured, officials said Monday.

A helicopter carrying Nepal's tourism minister has crashed in Nepal's hilly east, officials said Wednesday, with no word yet on the fate of those aboard.

The minister, Rabindra Adhikari, was travelling with five other passengers from the eastern district of Taplejung to Terathum when the Air Dynasty chopper went down.

One person was killed and dozens injured in Nepal when police opened fire on protesters demanding action over the rape and murder of a 13-year-old girl, officials said Saturday.

A landslide triggered by heavy rains killed three in western Nepal, an official said Friday, with four people still missing after their hamlet was deluged by water and rocky debris.

Rescue workers are searching for the missing villagers, the official added, while six people who were injured in the landslide, which happened around midnight Thursday, are all receiving medical treatment.

Nepal has recalled its ambassador to India and cancelled an upcoming visit by its president to New Delhi, officials said Saturday, further straining ties between the two neighbors after months of tension.

Deep Kumar Upadhyay was recalled to Kathmandu late Friday after allegedly siding with the Nepali Congress opposition in supporting a threat by the Maoist party to topple Prime Minister K.P Sharma Oli's government, sources said.

Nepal police said Thursday they fired on demonstrators, killing three, after fresh violence erupted in the country's southern plains where ethnic minority protesters have mounted a months-long battle over a new constitution.

Clashes broke out in the southeastern district of Morang Thursday afternoon when hundreds of protesters armed with batons, knives and petrol bombs tried to disrupt a meeting of activists from the ruling CPN-UML party.

Nepalese police shot and killed two protesters after fresh clashes erupted in the country's southern plains as a crisis over a new constitution deepens, a senior local officer said Sunday.

The clashes broke out late on Saturday in the southeastern district of Saptari as protesters armed with batons and home-made tools tried to block a highway in defiance of police orders, the officer said.

Some 100,000 Bhutanese refugees have been resettled in Western countries from camps in Nepal where they have been living for two decades after being forced out of their homeland, the U.N. said Thursday.

The refugees have been offered new lives in the United States and other nations after the failure of years of negotiations to secure their return to Bhutan, which says they are illegal immigrants.

The United States warned Thursday of a looming "humanitarian crisis" in quake-hit Nepal which is facing crippling shortages of vital supplies as protesters block a key checkpoint bordering India.

Scores of trucks have been stranded at a crossing in the southern town of Birgunj for nearly six weeks, cutting off supplies and forcing fuel rationing across the landlocked Himalayan nation.

A packed passenger bus plunged over a cliff and killed 30 people in central Nepal on Tuesday , a senior local official said.

Rescuers struggled to recover bodies and help the injured to safety after the bus fell 200 meters (656 feet) off the mountainous road in Rasuwa district, home to the popular Langtang trekking route.