COMOROS: Search continues with little hope of more suviviors from Comoros plane crash

Record ID: 574914

  • Title: COMOROS: Search continues with little hope of more suviviors from Comoros plane crash
  • Date: 3rd July 2009
  • Summary: MORONI, COMOROS (JULY 2, 2009) (REUTERS) ==AUDIO IN MUTE== VARIOUS AERIAL SHOTS OF COMOROS COAST AND INDIAN OCEAN VIEW OF OCEAN FROM PLANE ==NATURAL SOUND== JEAN YOUSUF, DIRECTOR OF EL MAROUF HOSPITAL TALKING TO JOURNALIST (SOUNDBITE) (English) JEAN YOUSUF, DIRECTOR OF EL MAROUF HOSPITAL, SAYING: "She does not know that her mother is dead and the farther he lives in France and so the father decided to have her daughter with him and so Comoran authorities and French authorities decided to repatriate, evacuate her." YOUSUF TALKING TO JOURNALIST
  • Embargoed: 18th July 2009 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Comoros
  • Country: Comoros
  • Topics: Disasters / Accidents / Natural catastrophes
  • Reuters ID: LVAAJSD60R3XB0JR423IRH2810U7
  • Story Text: Rescuers fear no hope of finding more survivors from plane that crashed into the Indian Ocean on its way to Comoros.
    As the sole survivor of a Yemeni jet that plunged into the Indian Ocean off the Comoros islands was reunited with her father in France on Thursday (July 2), rescuers continued the search in the vast Indian ocean but said hopes of another miracle find were all but over.
    Fourteen-year-old Bahia Bakari, who can barely swim, clung to floating debris for more than 12 hours before search teams spotted her in rough seas.
    But rescuers have been unable to find any of the remaining 152 passengers and crew since the Yemenia Airbus A310-300 crashed in strong winds in the early hours of Tuesday morning (June 30).
    Local doctors, who marvelled at Bahia's escape with little more than cuts, bruises and a fractured collar bone, said she was discharged at her father's request.
    Jean Yousuf, director of El-Marouf hospital in the capital Moroni, said the teenager does not know she has lost her mother in the crash.
    "She does not know that her mother is dead and the farther he lives in France and so the father decided to have her daughter with him and so Comorian authorities and French authorities decided to repatriate, evacuate her," Yousuf said.
    The stricken airliner was coming in to land at Moroni, the Comoran capital, on the final leg of a trip from Paris and Marseille to Comoros via Yemen.
    Local rescuers suspect many of the dead remain trapped inside the sunken wreckage. An official from the regional air security body ASECNA said the French navy believed the plane was 350-500 metres below the surface.
    The cause of the crash is still unknown.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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