Nepal's caretaker king described the killing of King Birendra and seven other members of the royal family as an accident on Sunday as the impoverished nation struggled to come to terms with the bloody incident.

First reports suggested that Crown Prince Dipendra had shot dead his family in a dispute over his choice of bride in the worst mass killing of royalty.

But Prince Gyanendra, named as regent in place of Dipendra, who is his father's heir but was in a coma, said in Nepal's first official comment on the incident that the accidental firing of an automatic weapon was to blame.

"According to the information received by us (they) were seriously injured in an accidental firing from an automatic weapon," Gyanendra said in a statement, adding that the members of the royal family had died later in hospital.

The statement, which did not make clear who was holding the gun at the time of the incident, said that those who died had been rushed to a military hospital but could not be saved.

Prince Gyanendra, the dead king's younger brother, was away from the city at the time of the incident.

On Saturday, Home (Interior) Minister Ram Chandra Poudel said that the 29-year-old crown prince had shot King Birendra, Queen Aishwarya, his sister Princess Shruti, 24, his brother Prince Nirajan, 22, and other royals after a family quarrel late on Friday and then turned a gun on himself.

Poudel later said the authorities did not know exactly how the royals died.

Media reports said the queen opposed the British-educated crown prince's planned choice of a bride and the prince shot his family after an argument at the dinner table.

Officials said that Dipendra remained in a coma in critical condition. Media reports said that he was clinically dead and being kept alive on a respirator.

In keeping with a Hindu tradition of swift cremation, the bodies of the dead were cremated on Saturday.

STABILITY

The killings were the latest blow to hit the impoverished nation of 22 million people that has been racked by political instability and a growing Maoist rebellion.

Analysts say the incident could have a major impact on stability in Nepal where Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala has come under heavy pressure to quit over corruption allegations and has faced violent street protests against his rule.

Some protesters hurled stones at police on Saturday, accusing the government of being behind the slayings. Along the funeral route cries of "Girija resign" were heard.

Birendra ceded absolute power in favour of a British-style constitutional monarchy in 1990, but wielded huge informal clout.

Despite his largely ceremonial function, analysts say the "gentle king", as he was known, was a stabilising figure during Nepal's troubled first decade as a democracy.

"I never believed this could happen," said an elderly man. "It was the king who protected us from all the unrest in our country. What will happen to our country?"

In accordance with the constitution, the crown prince was declared king but, because of his condition, his uncle, Gyanendra, was declared caretaker king.

The bodies of the 55-year-old king and 51-year-old queen were cremated on the banks of the holy Bagmati river on Saturday.

Hundreds of thousands of mourners packed the streets, some sobbing, some silent in shock at the royal family's gruesome end.

Pallbearers clad in white vests and loincloths carried the flower-strewn wooden funeral stretchers the 10 km (six miles) from the army hospital to the Hindu temple of Lord Pashupatinath.

The procession was led by a military band and hundreds of soldiers and cavalry men on horseback.

The body of the king, revered by many in the nation as the reincarnation of the Hindu god Vishnu, was carried by 12 pallbearers around the pyre three times before it was lit. The band played the Last Post and 56 guns boomed a final salute.

Soon afterward, the pyres of the queen, their son and daughter and the other victims of the massacre were lit according to rites as a pungent aroma of incense filled the air.

Civil servants were ordered to shave their heads in a traditional Hindu mark of respect while Nepal began a 13-day period of mourning.

(China Daily 06/03/2001)