A plane crash in Nepal has killed at least 68 people in the Himalayan country’s worst aviation disaster in decades.
The domestic flight was carrying 72 people from Nepal’s capital city Kathmandu and crashed on Sunday shortly before landing in Pokhara, the country’s second-largest city 200km to the west.
The aircraft, operated by Nepal’s Yeti Airlines, was bound for Pokhara’s new international airport, which opened only this month. Videos from the crash site show flaming wreckage spread along the steep gorge of a nearby river.
Local authorities said that 68 passengers were confirmed dead, with the remaining passengers still unaccounted for.
Yeti Airlines said it did not know if there were any survivors, according to Agence France-Presse.
The authorities have formed a committee to investigate the disaster and cause of the crash, with Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal convening an emergency meeting of his cabinet on Sunday.
It is the country’s worst air disaster since 1992, when 167 people died in a crash in Kathmandu, according to Reuters.
Air disasters have in recent years claimed hundreds of lives in Nepal, where mountainous terrain and unpredictable weather can prove perilous.
A plane carrying 22 people crashed in the country’s Mustang district last May, killing all on board. The EU banned Nepal’s airlines from entering European airspace in 2013 over concerns about their safety.
The plane that crashed on Sunday was a ATR 72-500, a turboprop engine made by a joint-venture between Airbus and Italy’s Leonardo. In a statement, ATR said “our first thoughts are with all the individuals affected by this”.
It added that “ATR specialists are fully engaged to support both the investigation and the customer”.
Nepal, whose population is around 30mn people, is home to many of the world’s highest peaks, including Mount Everest. Pokhara is an important tourist and mountaineering destination and is near the starting point for treks to Annapurna, one of the world’s tallest mountains.
Flights are an important mode of travel in the country, with the flight from Kathmandu to Pokhara reducing a multi-hour road trip to less than half an hour.
Several foreigners were onboard Sunday’s flight, including five people from India and passengers from countries including Russia and Korea, the authorities said.
India’s aviation minister Jyotiraditya Scindia wrote on Twitter that the “loss of lives in a tragic plane crash in Nepal is extremely unfortunate. My thoughts and prayers are with the families of the bereaved”.
