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At least 18 dead as Air India repatriation flight crashes on landing

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(Last Updated On: October 25, 2022)

At least 18 people were killed and dozens injured after an Air India Express passenger plane repatriating Indians stranded by the COVID-19 pandemic overshot the runway in heavy rain near the southern city of Kozhikode, officials said.

The Boeing-737 flight from Dubai to Calicut airport was carrying 190 passengers and crew, the civil aviation ministry said in a statement. Among them were 10 infants.

Television footage showed rescue workers moving around the wreckage in pouring rain. The aircraft lay split into at least two chunks after the plane’s fuselage sheared apart as it fell into a valley 30 feet below, authorities said.

“Unfortunately, 16 people have lost their lives. I offer my condolences to their next of kin and pray for speedy recovery of the injured,” Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said in a tweet.

Friday’s crash is the worst passenger aircraft accident in the country since 2010, when an Air India Express flight, also from Dubai, overshot the runway and slid down a hill while landing in the southern Indian city of Mangalore, killing 158 people.

Both Mangalore and Calicut have table-top runways that are located at an altitude and have steep drops at one or both ends of the runway.

Media reports suggested the plane skidded off the runway of Calicut international airport, crashing nose-first into the ground. Calicut is in the southern state of Kerala, home to a large number of Indians working in the Middle East.

Puri said rescue operations had been completed and all passengers had been removed from the aircraft. Police said earlier four people were stuck in the wreckage.

The civil aviation ministry said in a statement there was no fire on board.

India, which shut down all air travel in late March to try to contain the novel coronavirus, has restarted limited international air travel.

Air India Express AXB1344, was a government-operated repatriation flight for Indians previously unable to return home because of the travel restrictions.

TV visuals showed the aircraft’s nose smashed into a brick wall, with much of the middle of the plane pulverised.

Local TV news channels showed passengers, some of them lying motionless on stretchers, brought into a hospital surrounded by health workers wearing masks because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Pained by the plane accident in Kozhikode” Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted. “My thoughts are with those who lost their loved ones. May the injured recover at the earliest,” he said.

Source: Rueters

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At least 1,500 families affected by recent floods: IRW

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(Last Updated On: April 23, 2024)

The Islamic Relief Worldwide (IRW) organization has reported that the rains and floods of the last week have claimed the lives of many Afghan and incurred huge financial losses.

According to the organization, a total of 1,500 families have suffered as a result of the recent floods and hundreds of livestock have also been lost.

IRW added that following the recent rains, 900 houses were partially or completely destroyed and 93,000 hectares of agricultural land was damaged.

This comes amid an ongoing economic crisis in Afghanistan which has left millions of people reliant on aid.

The disaster management ministry meanwhile confirmed earlier that 99 people died and 64 others were injured as a result of the heavy rains.

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Russia says US facing humiliation in Ukraine like in Vietnam and Afghanistan

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(Last Updated On: April 22, 2024)

Russia said on Sunday U.S. lawmakers’ support for $60.84 billion more in aid for Ukraine showed that Washington was wading much deeper into a hybrid war against Moscow that would end in humiliation on a par with the Vietnam or Afghanistan conflicts.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said it was clear that the United States wanted Ukraine “to fight to the last Ukrainian” including with attacks on Russian sovereign territory and civilians, Reuters reported.

“Washington’s deeper and deeper immersion in the hybrid war against Russia will turn into a loud and humiliating fiasco for United States such as Vietnam and Afghanistan,” Zakharova said.

Russia, she said, will give “an unconditional and resolute response” to the U.S. move to get more involved in the Ukraine war.

The United States lost more than 58,000 military personnel in the 1955-75 Vietnam War, which ended with Communist North Vietnam’s victory and takeover of the South, while hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed.

In the 2001-2021 war in Afghanistan, the U.S. reported 2,459 dead and over 20,000 wounded in the conflict which ended with the withdrawal of U.S.-led coalition forces and return to power of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA).

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Iran says water is an important factor in expansion of ties with Afghanistan

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(Last Updated On: April 22, 2024)

Iran’s special representative for Afghanistan, Hasan Kazemi Qomi, said on Sunday that water is an important factor in the expansion of bilateral relations, expressing hope that the flow of water to his country will continue.

Qomi said this in a meeting with Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs Amir Khan Muttaqi in Kabul, the ministry said in a statement.

The envoy expressed gratitude for removing obstacles to the flow of water from the Helmand River to Sistan and Baluchestan province of Iran.

Meanwhile, Muttaqi noted that there were good rains in the country this year, as a result of which, after several years of severe drought, Helmand River’s water flowed to Nimroz province of Afghanistan and into Sistan and Baluchestan province of Iran.

He assessed the relations between Afghanistan and Iran as “friendly and positive” and hoped relations will expand further in various fields.

During the meeting, Iran’s envoy also thanked the Islamic Emirate for its stance on Israel’s attacks on Gaza and for having condemned the attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus.

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