01/02/2024 10:25 pm (current 01/02/2024 10:30 pm)
Passenger jet and Coast Guard plane collided ©APA/JIJI PRESS
A blazing inferno at Tokyo's Haneda airport after a plane collision with five deaths overshadowed the mobilization of aid workers in the earthquake zone on Japan's west coast. A Japan Airlines (JAL) passenger plane crashed on Tuesday. fair, immediately after landing, with a Japanese Coast Guard plane carrying relief supplies to survivors of the earthquake disaster on the Noto Peninsula. Both machines caught fire.
Although all 379 people on board the Airbus A350 passenger plane managed to leave the burning plane without fatal injuries, any help came too late for five people on board the coast guard plane. Only the pilot of the Bombardier DHC8-300 survived, he suffered serious injuries.
The coast guard plane parked in Haneda was on the runway when it collided with the JAL plane at around 5:50 pm (9:50 am CET), Japanese media reported in the evening (local time). Images of the burning passenger plane were broadcast live on Japanese television, after devastating images of the extensive destruction on the island kingdom's west coast were shown immediately before. At least 48 people were killed there.
At least another 137 people suffered injuries as a result of the powerful 7.6 magnitude earthquake on New Year's Day, the Mainichi Shimbun reported. “The search and rescue of people affected by the earthquake is a fight against time,” Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said in front of the crisis team. The national meteorological agency on Tuesday lifted a tsunami warning issued the previous day for the entire west coast of Japan.
In the evening, Japanese television stations stopped their previously uninterrupted coverage of the earthquake. Broadcaster TBS showed how the JAL plane coming from Hokkaido, in northern Japan, landed on the runway and a huge ball of fire lit up the night. Everything started to shake and the lights went out. “It’s like a horror story,” Swede Anton Deibe told Swedish radio station SVT after the evacuation. When the accident occurred, the 17-year-old was sitting next to his sister, behind the burning wing. There was panic on board.
A 33-year-old Japanese man told the Asahi Shimbun newspaper that orange flames were coming out of the window as the cabin filled with smoke. Like many other compatriots, he was returning from New Year celebrations with his in-laws in Hokkaido, with his wife and two-year-old daughter. He thought “Oh no” and tried not to inhale the smoke. “Please remain calm. Please do not carry your luggage,” the onboard announcement read, the Japanese continued.
As firefighters put out the huge fire near one of the destroyed engines and tall flames rose from the plane's windows, passengers left the plane via an emergency slide. There were eight small children among them. 17 occupants of the aircraft suffered injuries. Looking down into the inferno, it seems like a miracle that they survived. How exactly the collision with the coast guard plane occurred remained unclear at night.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the archipelago in the Sea of Japan, many people began a second night in emergency shelters. Numerous homes have been destroyed or have fallen victim to fires as a result of the ongoing earthquakes. Roads were destroyed or partially blocked by landslides and trees fell.
“I was very scared, I screamed. I thought I was going to die,” Australian tourist Kumudu Thuyakontha told The Sydney Morning Herald. She had just visited one of the traditional onsen baths in the popular tourist prefecture of Kanazawa when the building began to shake. She and her family were unharmed and took the first available train to Kyoto after the shock wore off.
Others were less fortunate. “At first I thought the earthquake was of normal intensity,” an Ishikawa resident told the Asahi Shimbun newspaper. “But soon after there was a vertical tremor and the house collapsed.” His 79-year-old mother, who was in another room, was almost buried under the house. They spent the night in a tent on a hill and were later moved to emergency accommodation, the 50-year-old told the newspaper.
Around 100,000 people were asked to seek safety during New Year celebrations. Power was out in tens of thousands of homes due to winter temperatures. Japan's Emperor Naruhito and his family canceled their traditional New Year's appearance before the people on Tuesday. They were heartbroken and hoped that life-saving efforts would progress as quickly as possible, the media quoted the House of Commons as saying. The meteorological authority warned of new earthquakes in the coming days.