3 Sept 2020
Police in Nepal used tear gas and water cannon to break up a religious rally that defied a government ban on public gatherings imposed to stop the flow of the coronavirus.

Despite the ban, some 2,000 residents poured into a major thoroughfare of Lalitpur, near Nepal's capital Kathmandu, on Thursday to pull a chariot of the rain God, Rato Machhindranath, a ritual that has been celebrated for generations.
-snip-
On Thursday, Nepali Health Ministry spokesman Jageshwor Gautam said the number of coronavirus infections in the Himalayan nation had increased to 42,877, with 257 deaths.

Temple-studded Kathmandu Valley recorded 445 new cases, a jump of about 7 percent from the previous day.