WORLD / Africa
Survivors 'unlikely' in Kenya crash
(Agencies)
Updated: 2007-05-07 16:36
The rescue team searching for the Kenya Airlines plane missing in
Cameroon is seen on a road in a thick forest between Mvengue and Lolodorf
in south Cameroon May 6, 2007. The wreckage of a Kenya Airways plane that
crashed with 114 people on board was found in a swamp a short distance
from Cameroon's Douala airport on Sunday, officials said, but there was
no word of any survivors. [Reuters]
MBANGA PONGO, Cameroon - A Kenya Airways plane that crashed after takeoff
in Cameroon with 114 people on board is largely submerged in a swamp and
there is no chance of survivors, Cameroon's civil protection service said
on Monday.
The Boeing 737-800 vanished early on Saturday shortly after leaving
Douala for Nairobi in torrential rain. The aircraft was found late on
Sunday not far from Douala airport after nearly two days of fruitless
searches in the south of the country.
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"There are no chances that there will be any survivors because almost the
entire body of the plane was buried inside the swamp," Jean-Pierre Nana,
director of Cameroon's civil protection department and a member of a
crisis working group set up by the prime minister, told Reuters.
The passengers and crew hailed from 27 nations.
Early on Monday, rescuers battled through swamps and thick forest to
reach the wreckage after parts of the aircraft were found late on Sunday
in a swamp, and locals reported making grim discoveries in the thick bush.
"I saw one body and one arm," resident Guiffo Gande told reporters in
Mbanga Pongo village, an area of dense mangrove swamps some 20 km (12.4
miles) east of Douala.
"We also saw some seats and a piece of plane about the size of a car
door," Gande said, adding that he had not seen the plane's fuselage,
engines or tail.
The crash has again thrown the spotlight on air safety in Africa, the
continent with the world's worst record.
It has also dealt a severe blow to the image of Kenya Airways, one of the
most successful and modern companies in the east African nation.
Rescue efforts resumed near the village at daybreak.
Search aircraft flew overhead, as troops and police carrying gas masks
and plastic bags gathered at the end of a muddy road and then hacked deep
into the waterlogged forest.
"The crash site is about 4-6 kms (2.5-4 miles) from the end of this
road," said local gendarmerie commander Emmanuel Meka, telling
journalists they were allowed no further for now.
"Last night we saw lots of mud, but it was dark. So we do not know what
we will see today."
Cameroon's state minister for territorial administration, Hamidou Yaya
Marafa, said the rescue operation was entering a "new painful phase."
"Our task will be more difficult now, the task of recovering the
corpses," he said late on Sunday.
The crash site is more than 100 km (60 miles) from where radar-equipped
helicopters, ground search parties and villagers on motorbikes spent most
of the weekend combing tropical forest.
Kenya Airways Group Managing Director Titus Naikuni said in Nairobi that
local fishermen had led rescuers to the crash site.
He gave no details as to why the plane crashed.
Five Chinese identified
The six-month-old aircraft was carrying 105 passengers and nine crew,
most of them African, with others from China, India, Europe and
elsewhere. It had originated in Ivory Coast.
Five Chinese passengers have been identified as a Kenyan Airways aircraft
they were traveling on went missing earlier Saturday morning, the Chinese
Embassy in Cote d'Ivoire confirmed on Saturday.
Three of the five Chinese, two men and one woman, boarded the Boeing
737-800 in Abidjan, the economic capital of Cote d'Ivoire, where the
aircraft took off and was bound for Kenya's capital Nairobi via
Cameroon's coastal city of Douala, the embassy said.
The three were identified as Jiang Xuedong, a Chinese company employee
based in Cote d'Ivoire, Bian Jingzhong and Shi Weisha, a couple doing
business in Abidjan, the embassy said.
While the identities of the other two men, who boarded the flight KQ-507
in Douala, had been already known. One victim was identified as Liu
Sheng, an employee from the Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd based in
southern booming city of Shenzhen. Another was Wu Changgen, a businessman
from eastern China's Jiangsu Province.
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