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Rescuers work at the site of the crash in Pokhara, Nepal, on Jan. 15. (AFP/Yonhap)

A passenger aircraft crash in Nepal on Sunday took the lives of most of the 72 passengers on board.

The airplane’s passengers included two South Korean nationals, prompting the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to dispatch staff from South Korea’s embassy in Nepal to the scene.

According to the Associated Press and other news sources, at least 68 people died in the crash of an ATR 72 aircraft operated by Nepal’s Yeti Airlines on Sunday morning near its destination of Pokhara Airport in the Kaski District around 140 kilometers northwest of Kathmandu.

The airplane was confirmed to have had 72 people on board, including 68 passengers and four crew members. The Tribhuvan International Airport rescue coordination center in Nepal said it had discovered 68 bodies to date.

Footage of the passenger plane crashing over Nepal.

Shortly after the crash, Nepali Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal convened an emergency Cabinet meeting, while Nepali authorities sent rescue helicopters and hundreds of rescue workers to the scene to conduct a search. But they ended up suspending the search as dark fell, with plans to resume on Monday.

At the time of the crash, the aircraft reportedly split in two, with part of the fuselage landing on a mountain slope and the other portion falling into a nearby gorge. The short-hall twin-engine turboprop aircraft, which is produced by a joint French-Italian venture, was manufactured 15 years ago, sources reported.

The plane’s manifest released on social media by Nepali aviation authorities included two South Korean nationals, one identified by the surname Yu.

After learning about this that afternoon through an intelligence report from its embassy in Nepal, the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs rushed a consular cooperation staff member to the scene. The ministry said it planned to “confirm whether the [South Korean nationals] survived and provide the necessary consular support.”

At the ministry’s headquarters, an overseas South Korean citizen protection countermeasures team was hurriedly put into operation.

Offering surrounding views of peaks rising to above 8,000 meters, Pokhara is one of the most popular destinations for South Korean travelers to Nepal. But due to its location among those same towering mountains, it is notorious among local aviation workers for difficulties in landing and taking off at its airport.

Because of the presence of tall mountains — including Everest — aviation accidents are relatively frequent in Nepal. According to Reuters, the latest crash was Nepal’s deadliest in over three decades, following a 1992 Pakistani aircraft accident that claimed the lives of 167 people.

In 2018, an aircraft traveling from Bangladesh crashed while landing at Kathmandu, resulting in the deaths of 51 of its 71 passengers. Another plane crash last year claimed the lives of all 22 passengers.

Since 2000, nearly 350 people have died in airplane or helicopter crashes in Nepal.

By Cho Hae-yeong , staff reporter; Shin Hyeong-cheol , staff reporter

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