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Monday, June 4, 2012

Plane crash: Nigeria begins three-day mourning for victims

Nigeria began three days of mourning on Monday after a plane carrying 153 people plunged into a residential area of the country’s largest city of Lagos on Sunday, with all those aboard presumed dead.
The plane, which was flying to Lagos from the capital Abuja, crashed near the airport, damaging buildings and setting off an inferno in the poor and densely populated neighbourhood.
Several people were believed to have been killed on the ground, an emergency official said, while 10 burnt bodies were removed from a damaged building in the area, which was littered with plane debris including a broken wing.
President Goodluck Jonathan declared three days of national mourning and pledged a full investigation into Sunday afternoon's disaster involving a plane operated by domestic carrier Dana Air.
AFP news agency says chaos broke out after the crash, with rescue workers facing large crowds and aggressive soldiers while trying to access smoldering wreckage in the hunt for survivors.
The cause of the crash of the Boeing MD83 was unclear, but the emergency official as well as an aviation official said the cockpit recorder had been located and handed over to police.
Skies were cloudy at the time of the crash, but there had been no rain.
Nigeria has a spotty aviation record, although Dana had been considered to be a relatively safe and reasonably efficient domestic airline since it began operating in 2008.
Officials confirmed that no survivors from the plane had been found by Sunday evening, but saiPlane crash: Nigeria begins three-day mourning for victims
Nigeria began three days of mourning on Monday after a plane carrying 153 people plunged into a residential area of the country’s largest city of Lagos on Sunday, with all those aboard presumed dead.
The plane, which was flying to Lagos from the capital Abuja, crashed near the airport, damaging buildings and setting off an inferno in the poor and densely populated neighbourhood.
Several people were believed to have been killed on the ground, an emergency official said, while 10 burnt bodies were removed from a damaged building in the area, which was littered with plane debris including a broken wing.
President Goodluck Jonathan declared three days of national mourning and pledged a full investigation into Sunday afternoon's disaster involving a plane operated by domestic carrier Dana Air.
AFP news agency says chaos broke out after the crash, with rescue workers facing large crowds and aggressive soldiers while trying to access smoldering wreckage in the hunt for survivors.
The cause of the crash of the Boeing MD83 was unclear, but the emergency official as well as an aviation official said the cockpit recorder had been located and handed over to police.
Skies were cloudy at the time of the crash, but there had been no rain.
Nigeria has a spotty aviation record, although Dana had been considered to be a relatively safe and reasonably efficient domestic airline since it began operating in 2008.
Officials confirmed that no survivors from the plane had been found by Sunday evening, but said search operations were continuing.
"We presume they are dead," Tunji Oketunbi, spokesman for the country's Accident Investigations Bureau, told AFP news agency, adding that definitive casualty figures would only emerge after the search and rescue operation has been completed.
d search operations were continuing.
"We presume they are dead," Tunji Oketunbi, spokesman for the country's Accident Investigations Bureau, told AFP news agency, adding that definitive casualty figures would only emerge after the search and rescue operation has been completed.

Fashola rescues three kids from crash site
Lagos State Governor, Babatunde Fashola, has rescued and taken custody of three kids whose parents have been missing since the DANA airplane crashed into their Iju-Ishaga home on Sunday.
The  homeless children; Joel Okechukwu (11), Chisom Okechukwu (9) and Esther Okechukwu, whose age could not be immediately ascertained, were wandering around when they were spotted and rescued  by the governor during his visit to the site on Monday.
The children, who are now at the Government House, Ikeja, were sent on errands by their parents, Mr. Jeremiah Okechukwu and Mrs.  Josephine Okechukwu, when the aircraft  hit  their home and reduced it to a rubble.
Emergency response officials still working on the crash site had yet to ascertain whether the couple were dead or still trapped in the debris.
Briefing journalists on the kids’ rescue, the Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Mr. Aderemi Ibirogba, said they would remain with the governor until some of their relatives were identified.
``As things are now, the kids will remain with the governor here at Alausa. It`s so unfortunate that we cannot find the parents, but Joel, the eldest of the kids, has mentioned to us a particular uncle of theirs.
``He said the uncle`s name is Anthony Okechukwu and that he lives in Abuja. We are trying to establish links with him and inform him of the situation of the kids. We want the public to help us in this search.
``Of course, the governor is very willing to assist the kids, but the government thinks we should still know their relations.
``The kids are safe and they are being taken care of at Government House,'' he stated.
Ibirogba said the children had passed Sunday night in the home of an unnamed Samaritan in the neighbourhood before they were seen and picked up by the governor during his visit to the area on Monday.
The governor had, during the visit, described the plane crash as shocking and emotionally devastating, expressing his condolences to the families of the 153 victims.
Fashola later visited some of the victims of the crash at the Emergency Unit of the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH), in Ikeja.

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