Tragedy has hit both US and Canada on Saturday, July 6th with the Asiana Airline Flight 214 crash landing at the San Francisco International Airport with 291 passengers and 16 crewmembers abroad, and an explosive train crash at Quebec with 15 people dead and 60 missing in the Canada train inferno(as of July 10th, 2013).
The unfortunate crash led to the confirmed deaths of two passengers and more than 182 passengers have been reported injured and taken to hospitals. Passengers escaped the burning jetliner by the inflatable slides to safety as the flames began to envelop the plane.
Aerial Shot / Image Getty Images
San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee said at the latest press conference to MSNBC, “It could have been much worse! This is still a fluid and active scene.”
According to Yahoo, the flight originated in Shanghai, China and had a stopover at Seoul, Korea before reaching its final destination. Among the 291 passengers, there were 77 South Koreans, 141 Chinese, 61 Americans, and one Japanese American citizen and eleven people of different ethnicities. The nationality of these remaining passengers is still unknown. The passangers included David Eun, Samsung's exec, who tweeted "I just crash landed at SFO,'' he said. "Tail ripped off. Most everyone seems fine. I'm ok. Surreal."
The top of the fuselage was burned away and the entire tail was gone. Many witnesses reported that the plane’s landing approach as it was nearing the runway seemed questionable although it is still unclear as to the reasons for the plane crash. Stephanie Turner who had seen the plane touching down told NY Daily News that she immediately had noticed that the angle of the approach seemed strange. She said, “It didn't manage to straighten out before hitting the runway. So the tail of the plane hit the runway, and it cartwheeled and spun and the tail broke off … I mean we were sure that we had just seen a lot of people die. It was awful.” Kate Belding who had gone for her morning job around 11:30 a.m. also confirmed Turner’s observance and told Huffington Post, "Then all of a sudden I saw what looked like a cloud of dirt puffing up and then there was a big bang and it kind of looked like the plane maybe bounced (as it neared the ground). I couldn't really tell what happened, but you saw the wings going up and (in) a weird angle."
Benjamin Levy, who was aboard the flight told NBC Bay Area, “We were approaching perfectly well, but we were too low.” He continued, “When the pilot realized it, he put some more gas to correct it, but it was too late, so we hit the runway pretty bad, and we started going up in the air again, and we landed pretty hard.” Passenger Elliot Stone told CNN, “All of a sudden, boom, the back end just hit and flies up into the air and everyone's head goes up the ceiling," Stone used the evacuation slide to escape the plane. Vedpa Singh, who suffered a collarbone injury, informed USA News, "It was all over in 10 seconds. We heard a big bang, and it was over."
The situation at the San Francisco airport is chaotic but two runaways have been reopened. Due to the crash, many flights were diverted to various cities throughout the nation. Flightaware CEO informed USA Today that more than 70 flights had been diverted. However, SFO’s busiest carriers – United and Virgin America- are willing to fly customers ticketed to fly from, through, or to San Francisco on Monday to change their flights at no cost. There is going to be a lot of development once the NTSBC reaches the crash site.
The clouds of fire as the train rolled and blasted into 30 builings in the downtown/Instagram:@robbarac
The tragedy on the Canadian shores was as tragic as CBC reported that one person has been declared dead after the Quebec train derailment. The train was carrying crude oil and derailed away overnight after it was parked by the
engineer. The train sadly rolled into the heart of a town, which caused immediate chaos and evacuation into Quebec's small town causing loss of 2000 people to lose their homes. Witnesses have reported that there were over five to six explosions in the town of over 6,000 people.
Quebec provincial police Sgt. Gregory Gomez del Prado told CTV, "Words cannot tell the damage that had been done. Many, many buildings have been damaged. It's a catastrophe for the town of course, but also for the whole province."
Police said in the news conference that they expect the death toll to rise. Lt. Guy Lapointe, a spokesman with Quebec provincial police reported to CBC, "We also expect that down the line the number of people who are reported missing with regards to people that who have actually lost their lives will much higher in the sense that there will be more people reported missing that people actually found dead."
Although authorities are still investigation. CTV called the site "a war zone" and Zeph Khee, who lives 30 minutes outside of Lac-Mégantic, said that on Saturday he witnessed a huge fireball coming on Saturday morning towards the city's downtown eating up local downton hotspots and causing mayhem and chaos.
Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper said, "Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families and friends of those affected by this morning's tragic train derailment and subsequent fires,"
This choatic and mayhem tragedy brought together firefighters from both Canada and US. Five of the fire trucks were deployed from Maine after the Sherrif's Office from Maine alerted the firefighters. Flames welled up stories high and have been caught on both youtube and camera. A "nauseating" odor has spread through the area causing environmental concerns!
Feature Image & Source: Jed Jacobson/Reuters
Image source: KTVU, Ben Levy, and Greg Bothelho/CNN, The Atlantic Wire, and PBS
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