Nepalese police on Monday discovered the wreckage of a plane carrying 18 people that had gone missing one day earlier in the country's mountainous west, but no survivors have been found, an official said.

The Nepal Airlines plane with 15 passengers and three crew crashed into a forested hill in Arghakhanchi district, 226 kilometers (140 miles) west of the capital, with aircraft pieces found in a nearby village, an aviation official told Agence France Presse.

Rescuers in Nepal scrambled on Sunday to find a Nepal Airlines plane carrying 18 people that went missing in the country's mountainous west, officials said.

The plane with 15 passengers and three crew on board lost contact with air traffic controllers shortly after taking off from the popular tourist town of Pokhara, airline officials and police said.

Nepal's fractious lawmakers elected veteran politician Sushil Koirala as prime minister Monday, with the 75-year-old tasked with steering through a new constitution to complete the Himalayan nation's stalled peace process.

The silver-haired bachelor easily won a vote in the constituent assembly, which was elected last November in only the second national polls since the end of a civil war in 2006.

Veteran politician Sushil Koirala was expected to become Nepal's new prime minister after a rival political party announced its support on Sunday, ending months of deadlock following last year's elections.

Parliament will convene on Monday to vote for a premier, paving the way for the formation of a government charged with ending a prolonged political crisis that has crippled the economy.

More than 100 Nepalese doctors resigned on Tuesday as part of an ongoing strike to push for reform of medical education, while hospitals and clinics remained closed for a third day, the doctors' association said.

Doctors were still providing emergency and intensive care but all other services have been halted indefinitely since Sunday, despite a court order for their immediate return to work.

Thousands of doctors across Nepal have stayed away from work to support a colleague who has been on a hunger strike for days demanding reforms in medical education.

Tens of thousands of patients have been deprived of medical services because of the doctors' strike. Only emergency services are being provided.

Two Italians tourists visiting Nepal were found dead in their hotel room in the capital Kathmandu on Christmas Eve in unexplained circumstances, police said Thursday.

Police were investigating after being called to the hotel when the man and the woman, aged 53 and 48 and thought to be a couple, did not emerge from their room all day Tuesday, an officer said.

Nepal's Maoists have agreed to join the country's constituent assembly, ending a weeks-long impasse after they initially rejected the result of last month's elections, a senior party leader said Tuesday.

"We have agreed to join the assembly and help draft a constitution" after other parties agreed to investigate alleged poll-rigging, senior Maoist official Narayan Kaji Shrestha told Agence France Presse.

Nepal's Maoist leader, who swapped arms for politics when his "people's war" ended in 2006, threw the country's elections into doubt Thursday by claiming the poll was rigged following big losses for his party.

Pushpa Kamal Dahal, better known as Prachanda, demanded a halt to vote-counting after losing his own seat in Tuesday's elections aimed at installing a constituent assembly and ending years of political instability.

Officials began counting votes on Wednesday that were cast during election for a special assembly to draw up a long-delayed constitution and pick a new Nepal government.

Election Commission official Bir Bahadur Rai said the counting started in several districts and that boxes filled with ballot papers had reached counting centers in at least 20 districts.