At least 67 people have died after a plane carrying 72 people has crash landed near Pokhara International Airport, Nepal, in the early hours of this morning. The daily Kathmandu Post newspaper reported there was 68 passengers and four crew members aboard, quoting a spokesperson for Yeti Airlines.
A rescue operation is underway with some survivors reportedly taken to hospital. Chief District Officer Tek Bahadur KC initially told local news that "around 30 bodies have been recovered", a grim tally updated to 67 later today ,reports the Mirror.
Initial unconfirmed reports say there were a total of 15 foreign nationals on board - five Indians, four Russians, one Irish, one Australian, one French, one Argentine and two South Koreans, the Kathmandu Post reported. Three of the passengers were infants, three were children and the remaining 62 were adults. Fifty-three Nepalis are thought to have been killed, the Post said.
Images and videos shared on Twitter showed plumes of smoke billowing from the crash site. Nepal army spokesman Krishna Bhandari said: “We expect the death toll to rise. The plane was torn to pieces." But later, officials hinted that, miraculously, there may have been survivors in the crash debris.
"We have recovered 29 bodies so far and (we) have also sent some survivors to the hospital for treatment," Gurudatta Dhakal, assistant chief official in Kaski district, told AFP.
According to preliminary local reports, the plane crashed as it was coming in to land at Pokhara Airport at around 11.10am local time - 5.25am in the UK. Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal said the plane was flying from the capital, Kathmandu, to Pokhara in central Nepal, and urged security personnel and the general public to help with the rescue efforts.
Mr Dahal also called for an emergency meeting of his cabinet. Nepal has declared a national day of mourning tomorrow for the victims of the crash.
The airport has been shut down and a rescue operation is currently underway. The plane - a 15-year-old and widely circulated ATR72 turboprop plane - was manufactured in a joint venture between Airbus and Leonardo of Italy.
Horrifying images and videos shared on Twitter showed plumes of smoke billowing from the crash site as rescue workers and crowds of people gathered around the wreckage of the aircraft. In another clip, people are seen going about their daily lives in a Nepalese village as the circling plane approaches in the distance.
The pilot turns the aircraft so the wing is pointing downwards as it careens dangerously close to the earth. As the footage ends, the person recording points the phone down as a massive explosion rings out.
In May last year, a passenger plane carrying 22 people crashed into the mountains of Nepal just minutes after taking off. The small aircraft operated by a private airline was carrying 19 passengers and three crew members and disappeared in cloudy weather, as it flew over a remote mountain range in Nepal.
In 2018, a US-Bangla passenger plane from Bangladesh crashed on landing in Kathmandu, killing 49 of the 71 people on board.
Nepal, which contains eight of the world's 14 tallest mountains, has been branded one of the most difficult places to fly in the world. The country's "hostile topography" is a part of the "huge challenges" pilots there face.
The stunning mountainous regions make the country an attractive draw for trekkers, but the rugged landscape makes it difficult to navigate from the air, experts told CNN in May.
During bad weather, it becomes even more difficult, an issue compounded by the need to use smaller aircraft to reach more remote areas.
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