KYRGYZSTAN:Kyrgyzstan announced a national day of mourning for today after 65 people died at the weekend in one of the central Asian state's worst air disasters.
Russia was to send air crash experts to the former Soviet state, independent since 1991, to help examine the flight data recorders for clues as to why the Tehran-bound Boeing 737-200 crashed late on Sunday.
"This is the worst air disaster in recent years. We have never faced such a tragedy," said health ministry spokeswoman Yelena Bayalinova. The Kyrgyz government ruled out an act of terrorism.
Members of a teenage basketball team were among the dead and officials said many of the victims were so badly burnt that DNA tests would be needed to identify them.
Only 25 of the estimated 90 people aboard the aircraft, survived - 14 of them Kyrgyz nationals and 11 Iranians.
Survivors said a fireball engulfed the aircraft when it came down near Bishkek's main airport at Manas, some 30km (20 miles) from the Kyrgyz capital.
Ali Khozemi (39), a businessman from Tehran who was flying with his two sisters, said scorching heat built up inside the aircraft after the crash.
"At one moment we could not breathe at all because our lungs were burning," he said. "We were praying to Allah and waiting to die."
More than 100 people gathered at Bishkek city morgue to identify the bodies of their relatives or friends.
Photographs from the crash site released by state news agency Kabar showed the smoking fuselage and fragments of the aircraft strewn over the ground.
The cause of the crash remains unclear.- (Reuters)