The new year begins with misfortune for Japan. First, a series of strong earthquakes in the west kill dozens of people. Then there is a plane collision on the east coast in Tokyo, which several earthquake relief workers do not survive.
Tokyo – A flaming inferno at Tokyo's Haneda Airport after a plane collision with five deaths has overshadowed the deployment of relief workers in the earthquake zone on Japan's west coast. A Japan Airlines (JAL) passenger plane collided with a Japanese Coast Guard plane that was carrying relief supplies to survivors of the earthquake disaster on the Noto Peninsula on Tuesday for reasons that are still unclear.
Both aircraft caught fire. While all 379 people on board the Airbus A350 passenger plane were able to leave the blazing plane without life-threatening injuries, any help came too late for five people on board the coast guard plane. Only the pilot of the Bombardier DHC8-300 made it out; he suffered serious injuries.
A huge fireball lights up the night
The coast guard aircraft stationed in Haneda was on the runway when it collided with the JAL plane around 5:50 p.m. (9:50 a.m. CET), Japanese media reported in the evening. The images of the passenger plane engulfed in flames were broadcast live on Japanese television in the evening, after devastating footage of the considerable destruction on the west coast of the island kingdom had been shown immediately before. At least 48 people were killed there.
At least 137 other people suffered injuries as a result of the particularly strong 7.6 magnitude quake on New Year's Day, the Mainichi Shimbun reported. “The search and rescue of the people affected by the quake is a fight against time,” said Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in front of the crisis team. The national meteorological agency lifted a tsunami warning issued the previous day for Japan's entire west coast on Tuesday.
In the evening, the Japanese television stations interrupted their previously non-stop earthquake coverage. The broadcaster TBS showed how the JAL plane coming from Hokkaido in northern Japan touched down on the runway and a huge fireball lit up the night.
The rescue seems almost miraculous
Everything started shaking and the lights went out. “It’s like a horror story,” Swede Anton Deibe told Swedish radio station SVT after the evacuation. The 17-year-old was sitting next to his sister behind the burning piano during the incident. Of course everyone on board would have panicked.
Orange flames shot out of the window while the cabin filled with smoke, a 33-year-old Japanese man told the Asahi Shimbun newspaper. Like many other compatriots, he was on the way back from New Year's celebrations with his in-laws in Hokkaido with his wife and two-year-old daughter. He thought “Oh no” and tried not to inhale the smoke. “Please stay calm. “Please don’t take your luggage,” the on-board announcement said, the Japanese continued.
While firefighters extinguish the huge fire next to one of the destroyed engines and high flames shoot out of the plane's windows, the passengers leave the plane via an emergency slide. There are also eight small children among them. 17 of the plane's occupants sustained injuries. Looking at the inferno, it seems like a miracle that they even survived. How exactly the collision with the coast guard plane came about was still unclear in the evening. The investigation is ongoing. dpa
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