Bangladesh girls stranded in valley of death

The Bangladesh Under-14 girls' football team, currently in the earthquake-struck Himalayan nation of Nepal for the AFC Under-14 Girls' Regional Championship, is waiting to return home at the earliest opportunity from the valley of death.

The Bangladesh girls, who were scheduled to take on Nepal in the final match of the Championship this afternoon, witnessed a 7.8-magnitude earthquake which struck the mountain nation a few minutes before noon, claiming hundreds of lives so far.

A source inside the Bangladesh Football Federation confirmed that the team will be brought back home as soon as possible, which could be by tonight or tomorrow afternoon.

The final match of the championship was postponed by the match commissioner, without any further information provided regarding whether it would be held in near future.

According to sources in Nepal, the Bangladesh team, which was staying in Hotel View Bhrikuti in Lalitpur on the outskirts of capital Kathmandu, was shaken by the incident, but fortunately none of the team members were injured.

Pictures released by the Goalnepal.com, a Nepal-based football portal, showed the players and officials of both teams taking shelter in the open, outside the team hotel, as strong aftershocks hit the landlocked nation.

The Dasarath Stadium, which was the venue for the scheduled final match, had one of its walls crushed as the earthquake lay a trail of destruction around the mountainous nation.