Death toll from the airplane crash at the Phuket International Airport in southern Thailand Sunday afternoon has risen to 90 on Monday, while actual cause of the incident is not yet unknown.
Ninety persons were killed in the crash, including 55 foreigners from various countries. Only some 40 of 123 passengers on board the ill-fated MD 82 plane survived, according to Thai News Agency.
However, news network The Nation quoted Deputy Transportation Minister Sansern Wongcha-um as saying there were now 89 victims confirmed dead, 31 of them were foreigners and 58 others were Thais.
Thai Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont on Monday met with relatives of some of the victims, and assured that Thailand's aviation standards meet "international standards in every aspect".
The disaster is the worst air travel incident in the country in nearly 10 years, and the first occurred to a budget airliner since the business was introduced to the country a few years ago.
Surayud told the families that the Thai authorities are awaiting data from the McDonnell Dounglas MD-82 plane's two black boxes for further explanation of the circumstances of the crash.
Meanwhile, the airport supervising authority Airports of Thailand (AOT) on Monday announced that Phuket International Airport will resume its operation at 5:00 p.m. Monday (1000GMT), after Sunday's air crash prompted the airport to temporarily cease its operation since 4:00 p.m. Sunday (0900GMT).
Officials from the Australian, British, French, German and Israeli embassies arrived at the Phuket airport to retrieve 20 corpses of foreign nationals who had been identified, while the identification of other additional foreigners are under way.
Transport Minister Thira Haocharoen said the black box flight data had been recovered and will be sent to the United States or Australia for examination, and it will take more than one week to figure out the cause of the incident.
Initial reports said the two-engine plane, operated by domestic budget airline One-Two-Go, was carrying 130 persons aboard, including 123 passengers and seven crew. when there were 79 foreigners on board, including citizens from Australia, Austria, France, Britain, Iran, Ireland, Italy, Sweden and the Netherlands.
Airport administration officials said the airplane, flight number OG 269, took off from the Bangkok's Don Muang airport at 2:30 p.m. (0730GMT) Sunday, and approached the Phuket airport around 3:30 p.m. Sunday (0830 GMT).
After a failed landing attempt, the aircraft slid off the runway, crashed into trees and an earth embankment on the side of the airport before it broke into two sections and burst into flame.
Rescue teams had found it difficult to retrieve bodies of the victims from the plane's wreckage. By Monday morning, rescue workers are still trying to retrieve several remaining bodies trapped under the plane's wreckage.
Investigation of the crash cause is still underway. Authorities would not suspect the actual cause until the investigation concluded, although initial reports had cited heavy rains and poor visibility at the landing time as a suspected reason.
Phuket is an island located on the eastern coast of Indian Ocean in southern Thailand and one of Southeast Asia's most popular tourist destinations. Phuket has been under the spell of stormy weather, common for the local rainy season, in latest days.
The One-Two-Go airline, a domestic subsidiary to Bangkok-based Orient Thai Airways and Thailand's first low cost airline which started operating no-frill flights in 2003, runs the Bangkok-Phuket flights from Don Muang airport, once known as the Bangkok International Airport, six times a week.
Source: Xinhua
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