Anguish at Bangladesh hospital after jet hits school
In Bangladesh's deadliest aviation accident in decades, a training aircraft of the Bangladesh Air Force crashed into a school campus in the northwestern part of its bustling capital Dhaka.
Grief hung heavy over the National Burn and Plastic Surgery Institute, where many of the more than 150 injured were rushed for treatment.
Tofazzal Hossain, 30, broke down in tears on learning that his young cousin had been killed.
"We frantically searched for my cousin in different hospitals," Hossain told AFP.
"He was an eighth grader. Finally, we found his body."
The Chinese-made F-7 BJI aircraft crashed moments after students were let out of class at 1:00 pm (0700 GMT) at the Milestone School and College.
The well-known private school offers education to kindergarten children as well as senior secondary students.
"We have two playgrounds, one for the senior students and one for the juniors," said Shafiur Rahman Shafi, 18, who is enrolled at the school.
"We were on the playground for the seniors. There were two fighter planes... Suddenly one of the two planes crashed here (in the junior playground)," he told AFP.
"It created a boom, and it felt like a quake. Then it caught fire, and the army reached the spot later."
- 'Helping the children' -
The Dhaka hospital's joint director, Mohammad Maruf Islam, said most of the injured were aged between eight and 14.
Of the 51 brought to the facility, at least 20 were critically hurt, he said.
Monsur Helal, 46, waited grimly as his wife Mahrin -- a coordinator in the school -- lay unconscious on life support.
"Mahrin was helping the children out of the classroom when the plane suddenly crashed near her," he said.
"She was able to speak with me briefly, but now she is unresponsive."
Outside the hospital's intensive care unit, grieving and tearful mothers comforted one another, sharing harrowing stories of how they found their children.
Dozens of volunteers lined up at the hospital, ready to donate blood.
The interim government led by Muhammad Yunus announced a day of national mourning on Tuesday.
The crash was the worst aviation accident in the country in several decades.
The deadliest ever disaster happened in 1984 when a plane flying from Chattogram to Dhaka crashed, killing all 49 on board.
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ABC News
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Teacher dies saving students from Bangladesh jet crash inferno
A teacher is being praised for her bravery after losing her life saving students when a Bangladesh Air Force fighter jet crashed into her school and erupted in a fireball. Maherin Chowdhury, a 46-year-old English teacher, went back again and again into a burning classroom to rescue her students on Monday when a F-7 BGI Bangladesh Air Force crashed into the school, trapping them in fire and debris. Even as her own clothes were engulfed in flames, she continued, her brother, Munaf Mojib Chowdhury, told the Reuters news agency by telephone. Ms Chowdhury died on Monday after suffering near-total burns to her body. She is survived by her husband and two teenage sons. "When her husband called her, pleading with her to leave the scene and think of her children, she refused, saying, 'They are also my children. They are burning. How can I leave them?'" Mr Chowdhury said. At least 29 people, most of them children, were killed in the incident. The military said the aircraft suffered mechanical failure. He added that he found out about his sister's act of bravery when he visited the hospital and met students she rescued. The jet had taken off from a nearby air base on a routine training mission, the military said. After experiencing mechanical failure, the pilot tried to divert the aircraft away from populated areas, but it crashed into the campus. The pilot was among those killed. "When the plane crashed and fire broke out, everyone was running to save their lives. She [Ms Chowdhury] ran to save others," Khadija Akter, the headmistress of the school's primary section, told Reuters. She was buried on Tuesday in her home district of Nilphamari, in northern Bangladesh. Students from the school and others from nearby colleges protested as two government officials visited the crash site. The students demanded an accurate death toll and shouted: "Why did our brothers die? We demand answers!" Elsewhere in the capital, hundreds of protesting students, some of them waving sticks, broke through the main gate of the federal government secretariat, demanding the resignation of the education adviser, according to local TV footage. Witnesses said police with batons charged towards them, fired tear gas and used sound grenades to disperse the crowd, leaving dozens injured. Dhaka Metropolitan Police Deputy Commissioner Talebur Rahman said the officers had to use tear gas to disperse the protesters. He said he did not have information about the number of injured. The protesting students called for those killed and injured to be named, the decommissioning of what they said were old and risky jets, and a change in air force training procedures. A statement from the press office of Bangladesh's interim administrator said the government, the military, school and hospital authorities were working together to publish a list of victims. It also said the air force would be told not to operate training aircraft in populated areas. The F-7 BGI is the final and most advanced variant in China's Chengdu J-7/F-7 aircraft family, according to Jane's Information Group, an open-source intelligence company. Bangladesh signed a contract for 16 aircraft in 2011 and deliveries were completed by 2013. The Chengdu F-7 is the licence-built version of the Soviet era MiG-21. Reuters
