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News :: Miscellaneous |
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Over 1000 Nigers Die in Plane Crash, Many Children |
Current rating: 0 |
by By Augustine Madu
(No verified email address) |
05 May 2002
Modified: 06 May 2002 |
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KANO (Reuters) - Rescuers in the Niger city of Kano pulled the charred bodies of children from the rubble of homes destroyed by an airliner crash which officials said had killed well over 1000 people. |
Niger Plane Crash
The dead included all 76 people on board the plane and dozens killed in the rundown suburb where it plunged to earth soon after takeoff on Saturday, razing or setting ablaze houses, a mosque and a school. "Men formed a line, passing the bodies from the rubble to waiting buses," said a witness in the densely populated district of Gwammaja.
"I saw the bodies of many children wrapped in straw mats. I counted more than 10 in a short time," he said. "The place was filled with smoke and men were yelling orders. It was very chaotic."
One of the buildings hit was a mosque and another a Koranic school, whose pupils had just broken off to join their parents in nearby homes for prayers, rescuers said.
A christening ceremony was in full swing in one of the houses when the BAC 1-11-500, operated by local company EAS Airlines, plowed through it.
The airliner had been bound for the commercial capital Lagos from the northern city.
SPORTS MINISTER AMONG DEAD
Government officials said they believed Nigeria's Sports Minister Ishaya Mark Aku was among the dead.
Ezekiel Gomos, Government Secretary of the nearby state of Plateau from whose capital, Jos, the flight originated, said Aku had been returning from a political meeting in Jos to go to watch an international soccer friendly between Nigeria and Kenya in Lagos.
"We contacted Government House Kano and they confirmed that the minister was on the flight when it left for Lagos after the stopover in Kano," Gomos told Reuters by phone.
Hard-pressed hospitals in the sprawling commercial city struggled to cope with a flood of bodies and wounded. As night fell and with salvage work continued, Kano authorities ordered all doctors to report to the city's two main hospitals.
"There were 69 passengers and seven crew members on board," an official of the Federal Aviation Authority of Nigeria told Reuters. "All passengers and crew are feared dead," he added.
A fire official at the scene said at least 40 bodies were pulled from the rubble of the houses hit and there were fears the total number killed on the ground could be much higher.
"I saw more than 50 bodies at the hospital," Ibrahim Ado Gwagwarwa, spokesman for the Kano state governor, said after visiting the city's main Murtala Muhammed Hospital.
With Nigeria's shambolic health services ill-equipped to deal with such emergencies, officials feared the death toll would rise further given the number of people in critical condition.
Gwagwarwa said rescue workers were still recovering more bodies. "This is a calamity," he said.
The crash was the country's worst aviation disaster at least since November 1996, when a Nigerian Boeing 727 flying from Port Harcourt to Lagos came down, killing all 142 passengers and nine crew members.
Nigeria deregulated its airline industry in the mid-1980s and many companies sprang up to challenge the monopoly of state carrier Nigeria Airways.
Aviation authorities and passengers have raised concerns about the aging aircraft used by the dozen or so local airline companies. Only last month the Nigerian government announced a ban on the use of aircraft older than 22 years, a move that triggered strong protests from private local airline operators.
Between October 1998 and December 1999, EAS took delivery of four BAC 1-11-500s, one of the most commonly used passenger aircraft in Nigeria.
The airline had no immediate comment on the accident. |
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Niger Is NOT Nigeria |
by ML
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
06 May 2002
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For the geographically challenged, Niger is NOT Nigeria. The crash occurred in Nigeria. The latest press reports indicate that 145 were killed on the ground, although it is far from clear that all have been accounted for at this point. |
