Death toll rises to 16 after Bangladesh Air Force jet crashes into Dhaka school
Saidur Rahman, a National Burn Institute official in Dhaka, told Bangladesh's leading English daily, The Daily Star, that the death toll rose to 16 within hours.
Bengali-language Prothom Alo daily said most of the injured were students with burn injuries, with at least 20 people taken to a hospital.
Parents and relatives attended the scene as rescuers, using rickshaws or whatever was available, transported the injured.
Rafiqa Taha, a student at the school who was not present at the time of the crash, told The Associated Press by phone that Milestone School and College, with some 2,000 students, runs classes from elementary to 12th grade.
On Monday, she said, some students were taking tests while others attended regular classes.
'I was terrified watching videos on TV,' said the 16-year-old student. 'My God. It's my school.'
The Bangladesh Army's public relations office confirmed in a brief statement that the downed F-7 BGI aircraft belonged to the Air Force.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
BBC News
a day ago
- BBC News
Dhaka crash: 'A sound I've never heard - then the jet flew over my head'
"It was like 30 or 40 thunderbolts falling from the sky," said Ahnaf Bin Hasan, an 18-year-old student whose voice still trembled two days after the crash. "I've never heard a sound like that in my life - it came from the sky. In a split second, the fighter jet flew over my head and crashed into the school building."The Bangladesh Air Force F-7 plane had plummeted from the sky and slammed into the primary school building of the Milestone School and College in Dhaka on Monday, marking Bangladesh's deadliest aviation disaster in decades. At least 31 people were killed - many of them schoolchildren under 12 - while waiting to be picked up, heading to coaching classes, or grabbing a quick in his chocolate brown shirt and black trousers, school badge pinned neatly, Ahnaf was chatting with a friend under a canopy on the playground of the sprawling 12-acre campus of Milestone School and College, in the busy Uttara neighbourhood. He says he was barely 30 feet away when the jet nosedived into the building. Ahnaf instinctively dropped to the ground, bracing his head with his hands. When he opened his eyes, the world around him had changed."All I could see was smoke, fire, and darkness. Children were screaming. Everything was chaos," he told the BBC on the phone. The air force said the jet, on a training flight, experienced a mechanical fault shortly after takeoff. The pilot, who ejected just before the crash, later died in hospital."I saw the pilot eject," Ahnaf said. "After the crash, I looked up and saw his white parachute descending. He broke through the tin roof of another building. I heard he was alive after landing, even asked for water. A helicopter came and took him away."As smoke and flames spread through the school, Ahnaf's instincts kicked in. A flaming splinter from the burning plane had struck his backpack, singed his trousers and scorched his hand. "It was so hot, but I threw the bag aside and ran to help."He ran toward the concrete walkway separating the playground from the two-storey primary school building. The plane had slammed into the gate, burrowed six to seven feet into the ground, then tilted upward, crashed into the first floor, and exploded. Two classrooms named Cloud and Sky had become the ground zero of the crash. Near the entrance, Ahnaf saw a student's body, torn apart."It looked like the plane had hit him before slamming into the building," he said. "He was younger than us."The five-building campus, usually buzzing with student chatter, had turned into a scene of fire, splintered metal, and the smoke, Ahnaf spotted a junior student whose skin was scorched and whose body had been pulled out of the blaze by a friend."His friend told me, 'I can't do this alone. Can you help me?' So I picked the boy up, put him on my shoulder, and carried him to the medical room."Another woman was on fire. Children ran from the building stripped to their underclothes, their garments burned off, their skin blistering in the intense heat."On the second floor, students were stranded and screaming," Ahnaf said. "We broke open a grille to reach one of the gates, which was on fire. The army and fire service came in and rescued some of them."Ahnaf, like many others, quickly took on roles far beyond his age."We helped control the crowds, kept people away from the fire. We cleared the roads for ambulances and helped fire service crews pull their pipes through the campus."At one point, he gave the shirt off his back - literally."One student had nothing on him. I took off my uniform and gave it to him. I continued bare-bodied with the rescue."But the weight of so many young lives lost at the school is something he says will be hard to overcome. One of them was 11-year-old Wakia Firdous had walked to school that morning like any other day. When the plane hit, her father was at prayer - he ran barefoot from the mosque as soon as he uncle, Syed Billal Hossain, told me that the family spent the entire night searching more than half a dozen hospitals. "We walked across Uttara, helpless. Someone said six bodies were at one hospital. At one in the morning on Tuesday, her father identified her - by her teeth and a problem in her eye. But we still haven't been given the body."The pain of losing a child was only compounded by the bureaucratic maze. Despite identifying their daughter by a dental feature and a lens in her eye, the family was told the body wouldn't be released without DNA tests - because there were multiple claimants. First, a police report had to be filed. Then the father gave blood at the military hospital. Now they were waiting for the mother's sample to be drawn. "We know it's her," said Mr Hossain. "But they still won't hand over the body."Wakia, the youngest of three siblings, lived next door to her uncle in an old ancestral home in Diabari. "She grew up in front of our eyes - playing on rooftops, sitting under the coconut tree next to our house, always cradling her baby niece. She was just a child, and she loved children," said Mr Hossain."I saw her just the day before," he said. "If not for that after-school coaching, she'd be alive."In the chaos and heartbreak that followed the crash, moments of narrow escape and immense courage stood mother told BBC Bengali how she'd given her child money for tiffin instead of packing lunch that morning. During the break, he stepped out to buy food - and unknowingly avoided death by mere chance. "He is alive because I didn't give him tiffin," she parent's tragedy was unimaginable. He lost both his children within hours. His daughter died first. After burying her, he returned to the hospital only to wake from a brief nap and be told his young son, too, had died. And then there was Mahreen Chowdhury. The teacher, responsible for children in Classes 3 to 5, helped at least 20 students flee the inferno. Refusing to leave, she kept going back into the flames - until her body was burned over 80%. Chowdhury died a hero, saving the lives of those too young to save staff at the school, it's like living in a nightmare. "I can't function normally anymore. Every time I look at the building, a wave of grief crashes over me. I feel lost, unwell and depressed. I've lost three children I knew - one of them was my colleague's," said Shafiqul Islam Tultul, a 43-year-old Bengali teacher. In the aftermath, questions and confusion have swirled around the scale of the tragedy. The government has reported 29 deaths and more than 100 injuries, with seven victims still unidentified. However, the military's Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) puts the toll at to the Health Ministry, 69 people were injured in the crash and rescue efforts - including 41 students. Social media has buzzed with speculation about a possible cover-up, claims the Bangladesh Armed Forces have firmly denied. Meanwhile, the school's head teacher Khadija Akhter told BBC Bengali that families have reported five people still the eyewitnesses and survivors, the trauma lingers."I haven't slept for two days," Ahnaf says. "Every time I look outside, I feel like a fighter jet is coming at me. The screams are still in my ears."Fighter jets and commercial planes often fly over the campus, which lies close to Dhaka's international airport. "We're in the flight path," Ahnaf said. "We're used to seeing planes overhead - but we never imagined one would fall from the sky and strike us."Yet, the horrors of that day haunt him relentlessly. The screams, the fire, and the charred bodies of classmates and teachers refuse to fade."When I close my eyes, it's not darkness I see - it's smoke."
New Statesman
2 days ago
- New Statesman
'I blame Maggie!' How sewage radicalised England
Photo by Andy Soloman/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images In classic English style, it was raining on the first day of the hosepipe ban in the Wiltshire market town of Marlborough. But this isn't classic England any more. Residents are furious – and not just about the prospect of their yellowing lawns. Hosepipe bans used to cause a disgruntled ripple across the Tory shires. Today, they open the floodgates to a torrent of rage against environmental vandalism and corporate greed that makes the middle-aged of Middle England sound like radical socialists. 'It goes far deeper now,' said one lifelong local. 'The trust is broken.' Why, residents ask, should we save water when the water companies have been frittering our money away? With sewage in the local River Kennet, rising water bills (the same local produces a letter informing him his water bill is going up £19 a month), and flooding in the town centre earlier this year, Thames Water is a dirty word in this once clean and pleasant land. I'm told children in some local schools have even been asked to bring in a spare pair of shoes – one pair to walk through the sewage-splattered ground outside, and another for indoors. The golf club put their own water tank in two years ago, bypassing a reliance on Thames Water. 'There's definitely been a change in mood,' says Charlotte Hitchmough, 56, who has been campaigning against sewage overflows in the River Kennet for two decades. 'It's a critical part of living here – the river defines the landscape, and because the water's quite mobile it's really different month-to-month: people here talk about the river like they talk about the weather.' A new government plan to streamline and strengthen regulation of the water industry hasn't quelled the anger. Locals I hear from feel they've been lumped with Thames Water's debt and believe 'they're cruising around the world on superyachts'. The proposed changes also don't cover the consequences of road run-off into rivers, which is environmentally damaging and visibly so. 'You can see the river change colour,' says Hitchmough. 'That's probably going to get worse, not better – it's the next big, scary thing.' Having started her career as a consultant for the newly privatised water industry, she now – like some other fellow residents – sees greater state oversight as the answer. 'Profit shouldn't be part of it because, fundamentally, water is not a resource that belongs to anyone. Water is a source that none of us can live without. It was like privatising air.' It should no longer come as a surprise that even in Marlborough – whose constituencies have never been anything but Conservative for a century – you hear support for renationalisation and the conclusion, as worded by one local: 'I blame Maggie!' This year, the Lib Dems and independent councillors took control of Wiltshire Council from the Conservatives. From seats in the south-west to the Blue Wall (where affluent commuter-belt and suburban seats are turning away from the Conservatives), voters are deeply concerned about the sewage spills, suggest new focus groups and polling released in May by More in Common, a research agency specialising in public attitudes towards politics and policy. Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe Sixty-one per cent of those polled say reducing sewage pollution should be the government's highest priority or a high priority. They still just about blame the Tories: half of voters say the previous Conservative government did a bad job on tackling sewage pollution, and 43 per cent say the same of the current Labour administration. Pollution of rivers and seas was a particularly motivating issue for people who voted Lib Dem in 2024. Asked for the top reasons why they voted for the party last July, more than one third (34 per cent) chose at least one environmental reason – the most popular being the party's campaign against sewage pollution. Local Lib Dem leaflets accusing Tory MPs of voting to pump sewage into their constituency rivers still haunt the Conservative Party – blamed in part for electoral losses in their former heartlands in the south. But it's not just Lib Dem/Tory marginals. Even Nigel Farage's Reform UK has a policy to take half the industry back into public ownership. 'In focus groups from Worthing to Clacton to Ilford North, people were bringing up sewage last year in the run-up to the election and in some since,' revealed Luke Tryl of More in Common. 'You get this with every type of voter, because it's such a visible example of state failure – it is up there with failing to stop the boats, because people can't understand why government is allowing it to happen and isn't able to stop it. That's what makes it such a potent force.' For years, polling has indicated growing public appetite for state intervention and left-economic solutions – a trend exacerbated by the pandemic. Voters of every party support more regulation of water companies, for example, and a majority feels water should be publicly owned. While these sentiments may have benefited Labour in opposition, they aren't necessarily good news for the party in government as it pursues cautious, incremental fixes to broken bits of the state. Whether you were a Conservative voter fearing a Labour government, or a supporter who backed it, you see Labour as the party most likely to stick it to bonus-hungry executives and asset-stripping investors. Ministers' arguments about fiscal rectitude and balancing books fail to resonate because they 'go against the grain' of the party's traditional brand, according to one polling analyst. All the while, voters watch dirty rivers wriggling through their towns and grow impatient for change. If Labour's plan to regulate water better doesn't bring tangible results before the next election, the confused politics of England will – like its weather – become less and less predictable. Thames Water has been contacted for comment. [See also: Who is accountable in privatised Britain?] Related
Daily Mirror
3 days ago
- Daily Mirror
Simple mistake everyone makes when frying eggs and how to fix it
Whipping up a batch of fried eggs is a simple process, but there are a few easy-to-forget steps that can make a massive difference to your breakfast, brunch or dinner Whether it's nestled in a full English, crowning a bowl of ramen or paired with a portion of chips, nothing quite matches the taste of a flawlessly fried egg. You might reckon you've got your egg-frying game down pat, but there are plenty of easy-to-overlook steps that novice cooks often miss in their quest for crispy edges and a lush, runny yolk. Just because it's a quick job doesn't mean there aren't loads of ways to jazz up your eggs – and you could be making blunders without even knowing it. Foodie news hub, Mashed has put together a comprehensive guide highlighting the easy-to-forget steps when frying eggs that, if remembered and applied, can lead to cracking results. From the type of eggs you're using to whether you're sizzling them in fat or oil, there are numerous tricks to take your eggs up a notch, with one glaringly obvious, yet frequently ignored, error, reports the Express. Think back to the last time you fried up some eggs, perhaps for a lazy Sunday brunch or as a hangover remedy. Can you recall which pan you used? By opting for the wrong kind of pan to fry your eggs, you're setting yourself up for a flop, which can be sidestepped with a top-notch non-stick or cast iron pan. If you're going for the latter, make sure it's well-seasoned to prevent your eggs from sticking or breaking up while they're bubbling away. This nugget comes courtesy of Joseph Provost, a chemistry and biochemistry professor at the University of San Diego. Mashed has quoted Joseph speaking to the Washington Post, revealing that "most pans, even the really good ones, are actually filled with little cracks and crevasses," which means when they're heated up, the metal expands and egg liquid gets caught in those tiny gaps. To dodge this culinary pitfall, opt for a non-stick solution, which acts as a slick barrier between the pan's surface and your eggs. Bear this tip in mind next time you're frying up eggs – it could be the game-changer you never knew you needed. For those on a quest for the ultimate fried eggs, consider cooking them in some form of fat – it adds taste and creates an additional protective layer on any pan, echoing the previous advice. It's also wise to preheat the pan before introducing the eggs. This principle holds true for most foods when frying, searing, or aiming for a golden crunch. If you're using fat, as suggested, wait until the pan is sizzling hot before adding it, then let it heat up a bit more before popping in your eggs. And here's a final nugget from the egg aficionados: let your eggs reach room temperature before cracking them open. If you cook straight from the fridge, you risk a rubbery white and an overdone yolk.
