NEPAL: Post-mortem conducted on bodies of WWF helicopter crash victims in Nepal

The retrieved bodies of victims of a WWF-chartered helicopter in Nepal were taken to Teaching Hospital on Wednesday (September 27) where preliminary check ups were conducted for complete post-mortem. Earlier in the day, rescue teams in the mountainous terrain of eastern Nepal recovered the remains of the 24 people killed in the crash of conservation group's helicopter, officials said. The wreckage of the Russian-built aircraft was found on Monday (September 25) near a remote village in the Taplejung district -- about 300 km (190 miles) east of the Himalayan nation's capital, Kathmandu -- following a two-day, rain-hampered search. Officials said they suspected the helicopter, which was carrying 20 passengers and four crew members, may have slammed into the hills, broken into pieces and burst into flames. There were no survivors. The aircraft was carrying 17 Nepalis, two Russians, a Finnish diplomat, two Americans, a Canadian and a Swiss-Australian. Nepal's junior forest minister, Gopal Rai, his wife, Finnish Charge d'Affaires Pauli Mustonen and the deputy director of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in Nepal, Margaret Alexander, were among those on board. Other passengers were conservationists working for the WWF and two Nepali television journalists. They were on their way back after attending the handover of a WWF project to the local community. The bodies will be handed over on Thursday (September 28) to the relatives.

ITN Source | September 27, 2006

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