 |
Search : | ||
|
|||
News
|
News stories
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
7 May 2002 By Tope Akinwande in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire Although rescue operations have terminated, the Nigerian Red Cross continues to help survivors and the families of victims who died when a commercial passenger plane crashed into a heavily populated neighbourhood of Kano, Nigeria, on 4 May. "Our volunteers are now assisting medics and comforting survivors as well as relatives of those deceased," said Abiodun Orebiyi, secretary general of the Nigerian Red Cross. "We have been contacting bereaved family members in different parts of the country and reuniting children with their families." He added: "We intend to be here as long as we are needed". The Red Cross has also been requested by the Kano State Health Management Board to assist in the different hospitals where the crash victims are. The EAS commercial passenger plane took off from the central Nigerian city of Jos and made a brief stop in Kano. It crashed in a heavily populated residential area of Kano minutes after takeoff, on route to Lagos, the country's capital. Of the 77 people on board, only four survived. A further 75 people were killed on the ground and scores were injured. Immediately following the accident, 70 Nigerian Red Cross volunteers of the Kano state branch were deployed to the crash site where they provided emergency assistance to the wounded, helped in the evacuation and identification of victims, and assisted the Nigerian fire service, police, army and airforce in rescue operations. "We were able to participate in the search and rescue of survivors transporting them to the nearest hospitals and with recovery of the dead sending them to local mortuaries," said Red Cross volunteer, Danladi Musa. The Red Cross will also assist in transporting the body of Nigeria's sports minister Ishaya Mark Aku, who died in the plane, to his home state and family. The last major aviation disaster in Nigeria was in 1996, when a passenger plane crashed into the Lagos lagoon, killing all 145 people on board. |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
