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The Nepalese authorities reported this Monday, May 30, that they recovered or located 21 bodies of the 22 people on board the plane that crashed on Sunday against a Himalayan mountain. The government formed a panel to investigate the cause of the incident.
“There is very little chance of finding survivors,” said Deo Chandra Lal Karna, a spokesman for the Nepal Civil Aviation Authority.
His statements came shortly before Nepalese soldiers and rescue forces confirmed that, of the 22 people on board the aircraft that crashed on Sunday, May 29, they recovered 21 bodies scattered on a slope, some 4,400 meters high. The plane collided with a Himalayan mountain.
The same sources added that they were trying to rescue the body of the remaining person. The victims are two German citizens, four from India and 16 Nepalese.
At least ten of the bodies have already been transferred by the emergency services to Kathmandu, the capital.
“I am waiting for the body of my son,” Maniram Pokhrel said in a broken voice. His son Utsav Pokhrel, 25, was the co-pilot of the plane, made by the Havilland Canada company and operated by the privately owned Nepalese airline Tara Air.
The Government appoints a delegation to investigate the causes of the accident
Until now the exact causes of the tragedy are unknown, so the Government appointed a panel to investigate the circumstances of the incident.
However, the authorities emphasize that the plane fell in an area of difficult terrain and in the middle of cloudy weather, which even made search and rescue efforts difficult.
Local television footage showed rescuers carrying the bodies, with the help of ropes, up a steep, grassy slope.
“There is a very thick cloud in the area,” confirmed Netra Prasad Sharma, the highest-ranking official in the Mustang district, where the events occurred.
The tragic event occurred 15 minutes after the aircraft took off from the tourist city of Pokhara, 125 kilometers west of Kathmandu, bound for Jomsom, a popular pilgrimage site, about 80 kilometers northwest of Pokhara. Usually it is a flight that only takes 20 minutes.
Located in the heart of the Himalayas, Jomsom is a popular destination for foreign tourists, but on a dangerous route.
The aircraft lost contact with the Pokhara control tower five minutes before landing, according to airline officials.
The crash site is near Nepal’s border with China, in a region where Mount Dhaulagiri, the world’s seventh highest peak at 8,167 meters, is located.
With Reuters and EFE
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