Dozens of people have been killed after a plane with 72 people on board crashed near an airport in central Nepal. The Yeti Airlines flight from Kathmandu to the tourist town of Pokhara crashed on landing before catching fire. Videos posted on social media show an aircraft flying low over a populated area before spinning sharply. Reports of the death toll are varied. One official put the fatalities as high as 62, another said at least 29 bodies had so far been recovered. Several very critically injured people survived the disaster and were rushed to hospital, local reports said, although this is so far unconfirmed. The flight set out with 68 passengers on board, including at least 15 foreign nationals, and four crew members. Local resident Deeveta Kal told the BBC how she rushed to the crash site after seeing the aircraft plunge from the sky shortly after 11:00 a,m, local time (05:15 GMT). "By the time I was there the crash site was already crowded. There was huge smoke coming from the flames of the plane. And then helicopters came over in no time," she said. "The pilot tried his best to not hit civilization or any home," Deevta Kal added. "There was a small space right beside the Seti River and the flight hit the ground in that small space." Hundreds of Nepalese soldiers are involved in the operation at the crash site in the gorge of the Seti River, just one and a half kilometers from the airport. Video taken where the plane came down showed thick billowing black smoke and burning debris. "We expect to recover more bodies," an army spokesman told Reuters, saying the plane "has broken into pieces". Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal called an emergency meeting of his Cabinet and urged state agencies to work on rescue operations. A panel to investigate the cause of the crash has been set up. Of the passengers, 53 are said to be Nepalese. There were five Indian, four Russians and two Koreans on the plane. There was also one passenger each from Ireland, Australia, Argentina and France among others. Aviation accidents are not uncommon in Nepal, often due to its remote runways and sudden weather changes that can make for hazardous conditions. A Tara Air plane crashed in May 2022 in the northern Nepalese district of Mustang, killing 22 people. In early 2018, 51 people were killed when a US-Bangla flight travelling from Dhaka in Bangladesh caught fire as it landed in Kathmandu. — BBC
