Nigerian plane toll reaches 148

Mosques and houses were flattened by the plane

KANO, Nigeria -- A day after a commercial airliner crashed into a crowded neighbourhood in Kano, the International Red Cross put the death toll at 148.

Most of the dead were children at an Islamic school the plane slammed into, creating a giant fireball.

An additional 49 people on the ground were injured by the crash, the IRC said.

The EAS Airlines (Executive Airline Services) plane had just taken off on Saturday from Kano, en route to Lagos in the southwestern part of the country, when it crashed.

It went down about 1.2 miles from the airport, crashing into the Gwammaja neighbourhood and erupting into a massive blaze that burned 10 houses, a school, and two mosques.

As many as 100 children were inside the school at the time of the crash, the Red Cross said. The BAC 111-500 was carrying 69 passengers and eight crew members.

Five people on board the plane survived the crash and were hospitalised in serious condition with broken bones, cuts and abrasions on Sunday, EAS said.

One of the survivors is a Lebanese national, the other four are believed to be Nigerian, one of them a member of the crew.

Nigeria's sports minister, Ishaya Mark Aku, was among the passengers confirmed dead.

In a statement, the airline said neither the cockpit voice recorder nor the flight data recorder had been recovered.

Officials said investigators had been dispatched to the crash site, and that the government was considering asking for international help in its investigation.

The cause of the crash was still not clear on Sunday.

President Olusegun Obasanjo cut short a trip to Botswana and said flags would fly at halfmast for two days of national mourning on Sunday and Monday.

Obasanjo said the plane had apparently lost power upon takeoff.

Eyewitnesses told The Associated Press the plane had scraped along rooftops before hitting the ground in a ball of flames. Most victims had their clothes burned off them.

The tail of the plane jutted out of one house. Another part, from the engine, lay in the middle of a street on top of a dead goat.

Thousands of Nigerians joined the rescue attempt, crying out each time a body was found from the Executive Airline Services (EAS) plane.

The last major Nigerian air crash occurred in November 1996, when a Nigerian Boeing 727 flying from Port Harcourt to Lagos crashed, killing all 142 passengers and nine crew members.