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Two major Sri Lankan newspapers are suspending their print editions because of a lack of paper, their owner said, the latest casualties in the island nation’s economic crisis, Aljazeera reported.

The South Asian nation of 22 million people is facing its worst economic meltdown since independence from Britain in 1948 after its foreign reserves hit rock bottom.

Privately owned Upali Newspapers on Friday said their English-language daily, The Island, and its sister Sinhalese version, Divaina, will only be available online “in view of the prevailing newsprint shortage”.

Other main national dailies have also reduced pages after costs soared by more than a third in the past five months and because of difficulties securing supplies from abroad.

School tests for nearly three million of Sri Lanka’s 4.5 million pupils were postponed indefinitely last week after the authorities failed to source enough paper and ink, according to Aljazeera.

The dollar shortage has caused energy shortages affecting all sectors and led to skyrocketing prices with inflation at a record 17.5 percent in February, the fifth consecutive monthly high.

Motorists have to queue at gasoline pumps and at least four people have died in the past week while waiting long hours to top up.

Energy ministry officials said they managed to raise $42m by Friday to pay for a cargo of diesel and aviation fuel, held up at the Colombo port for nearly two weeks because there were no dollars to pay for it.

Earlier this month, the government allowed the rupee to depreciate and announced it will seek an IMF bailout to restructure its foreign debt, Aljazeera reported.

Sri Lanka needs nearly $7bn to service its external debt this year while the country’s foreign reserves have hit $2.3bn, down from $7.5bn when the current government came to power in November 2019.

The island is also seeking more loans from India, China and other countries to overcome its currency crisis.

Sri Lanka was in a deep economic crisis when the pandemic hit, reducing foreign worker remittances and crippling the lucrative tourism sector, a key source of dollars for the economy, according to Aljazeera.

A man died after a bus hit a bike in Bhaktapur on Friday.

The deceased has been identified as Ramesh Timilsina (36) of Sudan, Changunarayan Municipality-8.

The incident occurred when the bus (Ba 4 Kha 2001) heading towards Sallaghari from Radhe Radhe hit the bike (3-02-006 Pa 6114) yesterday, police said.

Critically injured in the incident, Timilsina breathed his last during the course of treatment, the Metropolitan Police Range, Bhaktapur said.

Police said that they are searching for the bus driver who fled the scene after the incident.

Nepal reported 18 new Covid-19 cases on Friday.

According to the Ministry of Health and Population, 2, 822 swab samples were tested in the RT-PCR method, of which 12 returned positive. Likewise, 1, 520 people underwent antigen tests, of which six were tested positive.

The Ministry said that no one died of virus in the last 24 hours. The Ministry said that 271 infected people recovered from the disease.

As of today, there are 1, 960 active cases in the country.

A man killed his wife by attacking her with a sharp weapon in Chunikhel, Budhanilkantha Municipality-13 on Thursday.

SP Dinesh Raj Mainali of the Metropolitan Police Range, Kathmandu, said that Bhakta Bahadur Thapa (21) of Udayapur and currently residing in Chunikhel killed his wife Laxmi Tamang (24) by attacking her with the sharp weapon over a domestic dispute last night.

Critically injured in the incident, Tamang was rushed to a hospital but doctors pronounced her dead on arrival.

Police said that they have arrested Thapa and kept at the Metropolitan Police Circle, Budhanilkantha for investigation.