Nepal Annual Worship, Disaster; Two-Headed Boy

Hindu devotees worship Ganesh, the Elephant God, while celebrating Father Ganga (Reuters/Gopal Chitrakar, Nepal).


Tibetan nuns walk towards the office of the UN Commission on Human Rights in Kathmandu August 29, 2008. The Tibetans submitted to the organization their petition against Chinese actions in Tibet (Reuters/Shruti Shrestha, Nepal).

• Nepal SLIDESHOW

In other man-made disasters (stemming from chemical use contaminating the environment, turning on genes epigenetically), there is the tragic story of a two headed baby born at the end of the Ganges, in Bangladesh.

Bangladeshi baby Kiron rests in a blanket at a hospital in Jessore, on August 26. The baby boy in southwestern Bangladesh died after his parents decided to take him home because they could not afford adequate medical care, a doctor said Thursday (AFP/File).

Bangladeshi boy with two heads dies: doctor (8/28/08)

DHAKA (AFP) – A baby boy born with two heads in southwestern Bangladesh died after his parents decided to take him home because they could not afford adequate medical care, a doctor said Thursday.

The boy, named Kiron, was born Monday by Cesarean section and died at home late Wednesday after developing a fever and breathing difficulties, paediatrician KS Alam told AFP.

Kiron had attracted such attention that 150,000 people gathered at the clinic where he was cared for after his birth in Keshobpur, 135 kilometres (85 miles) from the capital Dhaka.

Police were called in to control the crowds and Kiron was transferred to a hospital in nearby Jessore city.

But his parents decided, against doctors' advice, to take him home, Alam said.

"We wanted to refer him to a hospital in Dhaka but the family was so poor that they could not afford to take him there, so they took him home where he died," Alam said.

"It was a very unusual case. The boy had one body but two complete heads."

He weighed 5.5 kilogrammes (12 pounds 1 ounce) at birth.