Nigerians try to ID relatives as airline halted
Source: Agencies |
June 6, 2012, Wednesday
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Print Edition
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ANXIOUS families and diplomats crowded into a hospital in Lagos yesterday and tried to identify bodies from a plane crash that killed the 153 people aboard the airliner and an unknown number of others on the ground.
Nigeria's government announced it had indefinitely suspended the license of Dana Air, the carrier that operated the MD-83 airplane that crashed on Sunday in the country's largest city.
The stench of the dead carried outside the air-conditioned morgue. Guards parking cars outside wore surgical masks to block out the smell.
Professor David Oke, the chief medical director of the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, told the dozens of families that the morgue had received about 40 bodies. He said among those already identified were the bodies of a Chinese citizen and a Canadian.
Outside the hospital, Ugonna Nwoka said his uncle had been aboard the Dana Air flight that went down in a congested neighborhood, turning much of it to rubble. Nwoka said he tried to go to the crash site on Monday but was pushed away by security forces.
"We stayed for hours trying to plead to see what happened," Nwoka said.
Yesterday he went to the hospital to see if his uncle's body was there. He had worked for the aviation ministry and needed to take a last-minute trip to Lagos, Nwoka said. The flight had originated on Abuja, the capital. About 10 US and Chinese diplomats also joined the families at the morgue.
By midday, searchers with police dogs recovered 150 bodies, including those of a mother cradling an infant, according to Nigeria's National Emergency Management Agency. On the ground, emergency workers were still looking through the debris for bodies, and one damaged building seemed on the verge of collapse.
After the hospital's director spoke to families, Jennifer Enanana leaned against a car, quietly sobbing. She said her younger brother had been on board the flight. She said her other brother had died within the last year.
"We are without eyes," she said, her sobs growing louder. "We don't have anybody who will protect us who can stand like a man and defend us. Dana stole him."
The plane went down in Lagos' Iju-Ishaga neighborhood, about nine kilometers from Lagos' international airport. The crew radioed the tower that they had engine trouble shortly before the crash, but the exact cause remained unclear. The weather was clear.
Emergency workers recovered the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder, said Tunji Oketunbi, a spokesman for the Accident Investigation Bureau.
A torrential downpour and strong winds that flooded roads and downed power lines and trees prevented emergency crews from getting to the site early yesterday morning, said Yushau Shuaib, a spokesman for the nation's emergency agency. The rain stopped by midday.
The scene is marked by charred metal from the plane, rubble from destroyed buildings, thick mud and water.
Nigeria's government announced it had indefinitely suspended the license of Dana Air, the carrier that operated the MD-83 airplane that crashed on Sunday in the country's largest city.
The stench of the dead carried outside the air-conditioned morgue. Guards parking cars outside wore surgical masks to block out the smell.
Professor David Oke, the chief medical director of the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, told the dozens of families that the morgue had received about 40 bodies. He said among those already identified were the bodies of a Chinese citizen and a Canadian.
Outside the hospital, Ugonna Nwoka said his uncle had been aboard the Dana Air flight that went down in a congested neighborhood, turning much of it to rubble. Nwoka said he tried to go to the crash site on Monday but was pushed away by security forces.
"We stayed for hours trying to plead to see what happened," Nwoka said.
Yesterday he went to the hospital to see if his uncle's body was there. He had worked for the aviation ministry and needed to take a last-minute trip to Lagos, Nwoka said. The flight had originated on Abuja, the capital. About 10 US and Chinese diplomats also joined the families at the morgue.
By midday, searchers with police dogs recovered 150 bodies, including those of a mother cradling an infant, according to Nigeria's National Emergency Management Agency. On the ground, emergency workers were still looking through the debris for bodies, and one damaged building seemed on the verge of collapse.
After the hospital's director spoke to families, Jennifer Enanana leaned against a car, quietly sobbing. She said her younger brother had been on board the flight. She said her other brother had died within the last year.
"We are without eyes," she said, her sobs growing louder. "We don't have anybody who will protect us who can stand like a man and defend us. Dana stole him."
The plane went down in Lagos' Iju-Ishaga neighborhood, about nine kilometers from Lagos' international airport. The crew radioed the tower that they had engine trouble shortly before the crash, but the exact cause remained unclear. The weather was clear.
Emergency workers recovered the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder, said Tunji Oketunbi, a spokesman for the Accident Investigation Bureau.
A torrential downpour and strong winds that flooded roads and downed power lines and trees prevented emergency crews from getting to the site early yesterday morning, said Yushau Shuaib, a spokesman for the nation's emergency agency. The rain stopped by midday.
The scene is marked by charred metal from the plane, rubble from destroyed buildings, thick mud and water.
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