By Sudipto Ganguly and Abhijith Ganapavaram
AHMEDABAD, India (Reuters) -Lunch break at a doctors’ hostel in India’s Ahmedabad turned fatal for many in the dining area when parts of an Air India aircraft crashed through its roof as the plane hurtled to the ground moments after takeoff, killing more than 240 people.
Only one passenger survived the crash of the London-bound Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner jet on Thursday, the world’s worst aviation disaster in a decade. As many as 24 people on the ground were also killed, according to local media.
A day later, Thakur Ravi, who worked in the kitchen at the B.J. Medical College hostel, is still searching for his mother – a cook there – and his two-year-old daughter, who he left under her care.
The last time he saw them was before he set off to deliver lunch boxes to senior doctors at the hospital, about half an hour before the crash.
“All the other ladies who cook food at the hostel managed to escape, but my mother and daughter got left inside … I have searched everywhere but have not found them,” he told reporters on Friday.
At least four undergraduate students and five relatives of students were killed in the crash, a resident doctor, who is part of the junior doctors’ association at the college, told Reuters on the condition of anonymity.
Images of the dining area shortly after the incident showed wheels and other parts of the aircraft embedded in the walls, while debris and belongings of the students, including clothes and books, lay scattered on the floor.
Steel tumblers and plates still containing some food lay on the few tables that were left intact, with a section of the aircraft that was partially wedged on top of the damaged building giving an indication of the devastation inside.
A strong stench of jet fuel hung in the air at the site on Friday, as authorities used cranes to remove charred trees and debris, while a portion of the wall of the top floor of the hostel lay on the ground.
Loud wails could be heard at the home of Akash, a resident of Ahmedabad who was charred to death as he rushed to save his mother who ran a tea stall near the hostel and was caught in the blaze of the crash but managed to escape.
“Her son ran in to save her but got blinded by the smoke and…was completely burnt. He died in front of our eyes,” Akash’s aunt, Jasi, told Reuters, adding that his mother sustained burn injuries and was undergoing treatment.
(Writing by Sakshi Dayal; Editing by YP Rajesh and Philippa Fletcher)
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