At least 18 people, including the pilot, have been confirmed dead after a Bangladesh Air Force training aircraft crashed into a school in the capital city of Dhaka on Monday afternoon.
Authorities also confirmed that 164 others sustained varying degrees of injuries in the devastating incident.
According to a military statement, the F-7 BGI aircraft took off at 1:06 p.m. local time before plummeting into the campus of Milestone School and College, located in the Uttara neighborhood of Dhaka. The jet reportedly burst into flames on impact.
At the time of the crash, students were either sitting for examinations or attending regular classes. Local media reported that many of the injured were students.
Eyewitnesses described scenes of chaos as emergency responders and bystanders raced to evacuate the wounded, using tricycle rickshaws and every available means to rush victims to nearby hospitals.
Panic spread as families of students thronged the school premises, desperately seeking information about their loved ones as the scale of the tragedy became clear.
A student of the school, 16-year-old Rafiqa Taha, who was not on campus during the crash, told the Associated Press:
“I was terrified watching videos on TV. My God! It’s my school.”
Milestone School and College reportedly has a student population of about 2,000, ranging from elementary to senior secondary levels.
Authorities have not yet released the identities of the victims, while the cause of the crash remains unknown. Investigations are currently underway to determine what led to the disaster.
This tragedy has been described as the deadliest aircraft accident in Dhaka in recent memory.