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4 Indians survive Laos plane crash

Four Indians survived a Lao Aviation plane crash in the remote northeastern mountains of Laos, in which eight people were killed, airline officials said Friday in Hanoi.

The Indians were among nine survivors from Thursday's crash near the provincial capital of Xam Neua, but all were in critical condition, an airline official told AFP.

Eight people, including a German, a Singaporean and a South African, were killed when the plane on a internal flight in Laos crashed, the officials said.

The Chinese-built Yuan-12 aircraft went down in poor visibility shortly after midday (1030 IST) as it was beginning its final approach on a flight from the capital.

Low cloud cover and smoke from fires lit by local hunters hindered the search operation and the crash site was not found until after dark on Thursday, the official said.

The mountainous jungle terrain had made evacuation of the survivors extremely difficult and not all the injured had reached hospital by noon on Friday, the official said.

The authorities launched a major search and rescue operation immediately after the plane lost contact with the control tower in Xam Neua at around 12.05 pm.

One group of survivors managed to walk away from the crash site and made contact with local villagers at around 5 pm (1530 IST Thursday).

The villagers helped them to the nearest road from where they were evacuated to hospital around 5.30 pm.

The information, the survivors were able to provide, helped the authorities to locate the crash site a few hours later, the official said.

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