Rescuers mounted a grisly operation in southern Cameroon on Monday to recover the remains of 114 people from a crash site where a Kenyan Airways jet came down in a violent storm on Saturday.
Luc Ndjodo, a prosecutor for the city of Douala, said that the first bodies had been picked up from the mangrove swamp where the Boeing 737-800 crashed.
As the crash occurred in a dense jungle in the area 20km southwest of Douala, it took rescuers 36 hours to find the mangled wreckage of the six-month-old aircraft.
PHOTO: AFP
The plane was carrying a crew of nine from Kenya and 105 passengers from 26 other countries. There were no survivors.
Late on Monday, Cameroonian civil aviation officials announced that they had found one of the two black boxes from the plane at the crash site.
"We found the flight data recorder. We still need to recover the cockpit voice recorder," civil aviation director general Ignatius Sana Juma said.
The black boxes store a variety of information such as a plane's speed, altitude and voice communications in the cockpit.
They are also equipped with beacons to aid rescuers in locating them and are vital in ascertaining the cause of a crash.
Police official Emmanuel Meka said the body-recovery operation had stopped on Monday night but would continue yesterday.
The plane's jets were ripped from the wings, a reporter at the site said.
Rescuers made their way through the mud and gnarled pieces of metal, collecting remnants of clothes and bodies that were then transported to the town of Mbanga-Pongo, an hour's walk away, for identification.
Parts of bodies were strewn about the site, the reporter said.
Officials from Boeing and the US National Transportation Safety Board were scheduled to arrive at the accident site yesterday to help in the investigation.
Cameroonian aviation officials said the flight, KQ 507, disappeared from radar screens on Saturday shortly after taking off in bad weather.
A Kenyan aviation official on Monday said the plane could have been struck by lightning.
The rescue work was being conducted under tight security with police guarding the site and helicopters hovering overhead.
Villagers armed with machetes helped cut an emergency path to the wreckage as Cameroonian troops cordoned off the area.
Kenyan officials praised Cameroon's handling of the crash.
"It was very well planned in terms of search and rescue and I do not believe the flight could have been found any earlier," Kenyan government spokesman Alfred Mutua said.
An additional Kenya Airways support team of 14, including counselors and French speakers, headed for Cameroon on Monday.
Kenya Airways CEO Titus Naikuni said he would leave for Douala early yesterday.
FREEDOM OF NAVIGATION: The UK would continue to reinforce ties with Taiwan ‘in a wide range of areas’ as a part of a ‘strong unofficial relationship,’ a paper said The UK plans to conduct more freedom of navigation operations in the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea, British Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs David Lammy told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. British Member of Parliament Desmond Swayne said that the Royal Navy’s HMS Spey had passed through the Taiwan Strait “in pursuit of vital international freedom of navigation in the South China Sea.” Swayne asked Lammy whether he agreed that it was “proper and lawful” to do so, and if the UK would continue to carry out similar operations. Lammy replied “yes” to both questions. The
‘OF COURSE A COUNTRY’: The president outlined that Taiwan has all the necessary features of a nation, including citizens, land, government and sovereignty President William Lai (賴清德) discussed the meaning of “nation” during a speech in New Taipei City last night, emphasizing that Taiwan is a country as he condemned China’s misinterpretation of UN Resolution 2758. The speech was the first in a series of 10 that Lai is scheduled to give across Taiwan. It is the responsibility of Taiwanese citizens to stand united to defend their national sovereignty, democracy, liberty, way of life and the future of the next generation, Lai said. This is the most important legacy the people of this era could pass on to future generations, he said. Lai went on to discuss
AMENDMENT: Climate change is expected to increase the frequency of high-temperature days, affecting economic productivity and public health, experts said The Central Weather Administration (CWA) is considering amending the Meteorological Act (氣象法) to classify “high temperatures” as “hazardous weather,” providing a legal basis for work or school closures due to extreme heat. CWA Administrator Lu Kuo-chen (呂國臣) yesterday said the agency plans to submit the proposed amendments to the Executive Yuan for review in the fourth quarter this year. The CWA has been monitoring high-temperature trends for an extended period, and the agency contributes scientific data to the recently established High Temperature Response Alliance led by the Ministry of Environment, Lu said. The data include temperature, humidity, radiation intensity and ambient wind,
SECOND SPEECH: All political parties should work together to defend democracy, protect Taiwan and resist the CCP, despite their differences, the president said President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday discussed how pro-Taiwan and pro-Republic of China (ROC) groups can agree to maintain solidarity on the issue of protecting Taiwan and resisting the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The talk, delivered last night at Taoyuan’s Hakka Youth Association, was the second in a series of 10 that Lai is scheduled to give across Taiwan. Citing Taiwanese democracy pioneer Chiang Wei-shui’s (蔣渭水) slogan that solidarity brings strength, Lai said it was a call for political parties to find consensus amid disagreements on behalf of bettering the nation. All political parties should work together to defend democracy, protect Taiwan and resist