Nepal PM meets families of those killed in Yeti Airlines plane crash

Nepal's Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal 'Prachanda' on Thursday met with the grieving families of the people who were killed in the Yeti Airlines plane crash in the resort city of Pokhara.

Prachanda reached the Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital to meet the families.

Expressing his condolences to the families, the prime minister directed the hospital authorities to speed up the identification of the bodies, make the process scientific and hand over the bodies to the relatives soon, his office said.

According to the prime minister's secretariat, Prime Minister Prachanda requested the hospital's officials to ask for necessary assistance from the government to establish the deceased's identity at the earliest.

The prime minister also inspected the bodies kept for identification.

In one of Nepal's worst domestic crashes, the Yeti Airlines aircraft after taking off from Kathmandu's Tribhuvan International Airport on November 15 crashed on the bank of the Seti River between the old airport and the new airport in Pokhara, minutes before landing.

Fifty-three Nepalese passengers and 15 foreign nationals, including five Indians, and four crew members were on board the Yeti Airlines aircraft when it crashed.

The five Indians, all from Uttar Pradesh, have been identified as Abhisekh Kushwaha, 25, Bishal Sharma, 22, Anil Kumar Rajbhar, 27, Sonu Jaiswal, 35, and Sanjaya Jaiswal.

So far, only 71 dead bodies have been recovered and the search is on for the remaining one person. On Thursday, the Nepal Army extended search area to rivers in the adjoining districts Nawalparasi and Chitawan districts too, said Nepal Army spokesperson Narayan Silwal.

Meanwhile, the bodies of 12 people, including an Indian national, were handed over to the family members on Thursday after conducting their postmortem, according to hospital sources.

The body Sanjaya Jaishwal was handed over to his relatives who returned to India, they said.

The relatives of four other Indian nationals, who were killed in the crash, have also reached Kathmandu to receive the bodies.

According to Nepal’s civil aviation body, 914 people have died in air crashes in the country since the first disaster was recorded in August 1955.

The Yeti Airlines tragedy in Pokhara on Sunday is the 104th crash in Nepali skies and the third biggest in terms of casualties.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)