The wreckage of the crashed plane is seen near the Lagos airport in Nigeria, June 3, 2012. A passenger plane carrying 153 people crashed into a two-storey building in Nigeria's southwestern Lagos State on Sunday, killing all the people on board and 40 others on the ground. At least four Chinese were among the passengers, the Chinese Embassy in the West African country has confirmed. (Xinhua/Ezekiel Taiwo)
LAGOS, June 3 (Xinhua) -- Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan declared three days of national mourning after one of the West African country's worst plane crashes killed at least 193 people in the economic capital Lagos on Sunday.
The Nigerian leader has directed that the Nigerian flag be flown at half-mast for national mourning.
A Dana Air plane from Nigeria's capital city Abuja crashed in a residential area in the Lagos metropolis, killing the 153 people on board and 40 others living inside a two-story building hit by the aircraft, according to the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA).
The victims include at least four Chinese passengers, the Chinese Embassy in Africa's most populous country told Xinhua.
The NCAA confirmed the air crash barely 24 hours after a Nigerian Allied Cargo airplane from Lagos crash-landed in Ghana, killing at least 10 people.
A Xinhua reporter at the crash site said more than 40 people living in the two-story building, each having six flats, were entrapped inside after the crash.
A wild inferno engulfed the building and proved hard to be put off by fire fighters, according to the Xinhua reporter.
|
