Nepal mourns victims of worst air disaster in decades - BBC

Nepalis are observing a time of mourning for victims of the country's worst aerial catastrophe for immoderate 3 decades.

At slightest 68 radical died erstwhile a formation from Kathmandu to the tourer municipality of Pokhara crashed connected landing and caught occurrence connected Sunday morning.

Mobile telephone footage showed the Yeti Airlines formation rolling sharply arsenic it approached the airport.

It is unclear what caused the crash, but Nepal has a tragic past of fatal hose accidents.

A hunt and rescue cognition that progressive hundreds of Nepalese soldiers was suspended overnight owed to acheronian but is owed to resume connected Monday morning.

Earlier, section TV reports showed rescuers scrambling astir charred sections of the craft which deed the crushed successful the gorge of the Seti River, conscionable implicit a kilometre from the airport.

Most of the 72 passengers and unit died, but determination were unconfirmed reports that respective radical had survived, though critically injured.

The premier curate of Nepal declared Monday a nationalist time of mourning, and the authorities acceptable up a sheet to analyse the origin of the disaster.

Local nonmigratory Divya Dhakal told the BBC however she rushed to the clang tract aft seeing the craft plunge from the entity soon aft 11:00am section clip (05:15 GMT).

"By the clip I was determination the clang tract was already crowded. There was immense fume coming from the flames of the plane. And past helicopters came implicit successful nary time," she said.

"The aviator tried his champion to not deed civilisation oregon immoderate home," she added. "There was a tiny abstraction close beside the Seti River and the formation deed the crushed successful that tiny space."

Aviation accidents are not uncommon successful Nepal, often owed to its distant runways and abrupt upwind changes that tin marque for hazardous conditions.

This Himalayan nation, location to immoderate of the astir breath-taking mountains successful the world, has immoderate of the astir hard terrain to navigate.

A deficiency of concern successful caller craft and mediocre regularisation person besides been blamed successful the past.

In May 2022 a Tara Air level crashed successful bluish Nepal, sidesplitting 22 people. Four years earlier 51 radical were killed erstwhile a formation travelling from Bangladesh caught occurrence arsenic it landed successful Kathmandu.

The European Union has banned Nepalese airlines from its airspace implicit concerns astir grooming and attraction standards.

The Yeti Airlines formation from Kathmandu to the tourer municipality of Pokhara near the Nepalese superior conscionable aft 10:30 (04:45 GMT) for what should person been a abbreviated trip.

It had 68 passengers connected board, including astatine slightest 15 overseas nationals, and 4 unit members.

Of the passengers, 53 were said to beryllium Nepalese. There were 5 Indian, 4 Russians and 2 Koreans connected the plane. There was besides 1 rider each from Ireland, Australia, Argentina and France among others.

Khum Bahadur Chhetri, a section resident, told Reuters that helium was observing the formation from the extortion of his location arsenic it approached the airport.

"I saw the level trembling, moving near and right, and past abruptly it nosedived and it went into the gorge," Chhetri said.