POKHARA, - NEPAL At least 68 people were killed Sunday when an aircraft went down near the city of Pokhara in central Nepal, a government official said, the country’s deadliest plane crash in more than 30 years. Seventy-two people – four crew members and 68 passengers – were on board the ATR 72 plane operated by Nepal’s Yeti Airlines when it crashed, Yeti Airlines spokesman Sudarshan Bartaula said. Thirty-seven were men, 25 were women, three were children and three were infants, Nepal’s civil aviation authority reported. Search efforts were called off after dark, Army spokesman Krishna Prasad Bhandar said, and will resume Monday morning. Hundreds of first responders had been still working to locate the remaining four individuals before then, Bhandar said. Among the dead is at least one infant, according to the Nepal’s civil aviation authority. Sunday’s incident was the third-deadliest crash in the Himalayan nation’s history, according to data from the Aviation Safety Network. The only incidents in which more people were killed took place in July and September 1992. Those crashes involved aircraft run by Thai Airways and Pakistan International airlines and left 113 and 167 people dead, respectively. The civil aviation authority said that 53 of the passengers and all four crew members were Nepali. Fifteen foreign nationals were on the plane as well: five were Indian, four were Russian and two were Korean. The rest were individual citizens of Australia, Argentina, France and Ireland. The aircraft had been flying from the capital of Kathmandu to Pokhara, the country’s second-most populous city, the country’s state media The Rising Nepal reported. Pokahara is located some 129 kilometers (80 miles) west of Kathmandu. The plane was last in contact with Pokhara airport at about 10:50 a.m. local time, about 18 minutes after takeoff. It then went down in the nearby Seti River Gorge. First responders from the Nepal Army and various police departments have been deployed to the crash site and are carrying out a rescue operation, the civil aviation authorities said in a statement. Nepal’s Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal said he was “deeply saddened by the sad and tragic accident.” “I sincerely appeal to the security personnel, all agencies of the Nepal government and the general public to start an effective rescue,” Dahal said on Twitter. Meanwhile, the Government and the people of Pakistan on Sunday offered their deepest condolences over the loss of precious lives in an air crash in Pokhara, Nepal. “We are saddened at this tragic accident and our thoughts and prayers are with the families of the victims. We stand with the people of Nepal in their hour of grief,” the Foreign Office Spokesperson said in a press release. President Dr Arif Alvi on Sunday expressed his deepest condolences over the sad loss of precious lives in a plane crash in Pokhra, Nepal. The President conveyed his prayers for the families of the victims who lost their lives in the tragic incident and prayed to Allah Almighty to grant them the strength and the courage to bear this loss with patience and fortitude.
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