Jet Crash Death Toll Rises to 148

Exhausted rescuers dragged the remains of at least 148 people from the smoldering wreckage of an airliner that slammed into a crowded city suburb in northern Nigeria, the local Red Cross said Sunday.

President Olusegun Obasanjo declared two days of national mourning Sunday, a day after the twin-engine jet struck a poor suburb of Kano after takeoff.

Three passengers and one crew member survived the crash, carrier EAS Airlines said.

A chief nurse at a main city hospital said one of those aboard the plane was only lightly injured. The other three were in serious condition, she said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The Nigerian Red Cross said the death toll of those killed on the plane and on the ground was at least 148 Sunday.

“As of this afternoon, 104 bodies were evacuated to the Murtala Muhammed Hospital, 42 to the Kano State Specialist Hospital and two to the army specialist hospital,” Red Cross spokesman Patrick Bawa said.

It was Nigeria’s worst air disaster in more than five years.

The dead included dozens of residents killed when the plane crashed into about 10 buildings, including a school and at least one mosque.

Seventy-one passengers and eight crew members were on board the aircraft, which was flying from the city of Jos to the commercial capital, Lagos, via Kano, EAS said Sunday.

Residents said the jet “wobbled” soon after takeoff from Kano’s airport Saturday afternoon, bound for Lagos, about 500 miles southwest.

Aviation authorities found one of the black boxes. The cockpit voice recorder still was being sought.

If necessary, foreign experts will join Nigerian aviation investigators, Obasanjo said.