A crude bomb exploded early on election day in Nepal on Tuesday, injuring three children as voters turned out for a poll seen as crucial in stabilizing the Himalayan country after a civil war.

The explosive planted in a middle-class residential neighborhood in the capital Kathmandu went off three hours after polling stations opened, with another five hoax bombs recovered by police on Monday.

Nepal's premier Khilraj Regmi urged the country Sunday to vote without fear in crucial upcoming elections, as ongoing violence by anti-poll protesters claimed its first fatality.

"We would like to request all the voters to participate in the maximum numbers," Regmi said in a televised address to the nation Sunday evening.

Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter arrived in Kathmandu on Saturday to observe crucial elections in Nepal next week that are seen as vital to the Himalayan kingdom's future political stability.

Carter, 89, will lead a team of 50 election observers from the Atlanta-based Carter Center, who will monitor Tuesday's vote, only the second such polls since a 10-year civil war launched by Maoist rebels ended in 2006.

A protest against next week's election in Nepal turned violent Tuesday as demonstrators torched vehicles and hurled explosives, police said.

A 33-party alliance, headed by the Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist (CPN-M), is boycotting the November 19 vote, the country's second national election since a 10-year civil war ended in 2006.

Police in Nepal arrested dozens of protesters Monday in a crackdown on a nationwide strike called by hardline Maoists seeking to postpone next week's parliamentary elections.

Protesters belonging to a 33-party alliance headed by the Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist (CPN-M) torched a dozen vehicles across the country while enforcing the shutdown, police spokesman Ganesh K.C. told Agence France Presse.

A small plane crashed into a hill in a tourist city in western Nepal on Thursday, killing the pilot and the only passenger, a Chinese tourist, a police official said.

The ultra-light aircraft was flying over a lake in Pokhara when it slammed into the hill near a Buddhist monastery, Surendra Bahadur Shah, a local police chief told Agence France Presse.

A flooded river swept away part of a small village in northeastern Nepal on Tuesday, killing seven people, a local police official said.

Heavy rain overnight swelled the river, which washed away four houses in the village in Ramechhap district while people were sleeping, police official Bimal Raj Kandel said.

Nepal's tourism ministry said Friday it plans to exercise tighter control of climbers scaling Mount Everest to make sure they keep the world's highest peak clean and to prevent rows.

The ministry will set up a 10-member team made up of government officials, veteran Nepalese climbers and security officers that will start work when the next climbing season opens in the spring.

Nepal on Thursday banned the sale of chicken after health workers found cases of bird flu at several poultry farms on the outskirts of the capital Kathmandu, officials said.

Officials at Kathmandu District Animal Health Office said the government had imposed a week-long ban on the supply and sale of poultry products to prevent the H5N1 virus from spreading to humans.

Nepal's number of Royal Bengal tigers in the wild has soared 64 percent to 198 in just four years, according to a government survey released Monday.

Experts attributed the rise to a crackdown on poaching as the government vowed to double the number of tigers in the wild by 2022.