"A torrential downpour and strong winds prevented emergency crews from returning Tuesday morning to a devastated neighborhood where a commercial airliner crashed, killing all 153 people aboard the plane and an undetermined number of people on the ground," The Associated Press reports from Lagos.
The wire service adds that:
"Charred metal from the plane, rubble from destroyed buildings, thick mud and standing water await the emergency workers. A three-story apartment building at the site struck by the nose of the MD-83 aircraft began shaking Monday as rescuers dug through debris, and they are afraid it might collapse.
" 'It's going to be messy,' said Yushau Shuaib, a spokesman for Nigeria's National Emergency Management Agency."
Before the rains tore through, 137 bodies had been recovered, Voice of America says. The Dana Air jet crashed Sunday. Its crew had reported engine problems, according to Nigerian officials.
Among those killed, the Hartford Courant writes, were six members of a Connecticut family — a couple and their four small children — who were on their way to a wedding. They're identified as "Maimuna Anyene of Elmwood, and her husband, Onyeke, of Nigeria. ... Flying with them were their four children: Noah, 5 months; Kaiyen and Kaima, 1-year-old twins; and Kamsi, 3, according to the children's godmother, Mari Sifo."
Also killed: "two ambitious sisters from the Houston area," according to the Houston Chronicle. The newspaper says Josephine and Jennifer Onita, of Missouri City, Texas, were also in Nigeria for a wedding.
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