Nepal mourns victims of deadly plane crash
Nepal observed a day of mourning on Monday for the victims of the nation's deadliest aviation disaster in three decades, with 67 people confirmed killed in the plane crash. The Yeti Airlines ATR 72 plummeted into a steep gorge, smashed into pieces and burst into flames with 72 people on board as it approached the central city of Pokhara on Sunday, police said. Soldiers used ropes and stretchers to retrieve bodies from the 300-metre deep ravine late into the night. "We have so far sent 63 bodies to the hospital," said police officer AK Chhetri on Monday. "Due to fog, the search has been paused. We will continue the search after one or two hours when the weather clears." There was no word on the fate of the five people still unaccounted for. Debris from the twin-engine turboprop airliner was strewn across the crash site, including the mangled remains of its wings and passenger seats. Rescue workers were rushed there after the crash, and tried to put out the raging fires that were sending thick black smoke into the sky. There were 15 foreigners on board, including five Indians, four Russians, two South Koreans, and one passenger each from Argentina, Australia, France and Ireland, Yeti spokesman Sudarshan Bartaula said. The rest were Nepalis. Nepal also has some of the world's most remote and trickiest runways, flanked by snow-capped peaks with approaches that pose a challenge for even accomplished pilots. The weather is also notoriously capricious and hard to forecast, particularly in the mountains, where thick fog can suddenly obscure whole mountains from view. Nepal's deadliest aviation accident was in 1992, when all 167 people on a Pakistan International Airlines jet died when it crashed on approach to Kathmandu. (AFP)