Dhaka [Bangladesh], July 23: The death toll from the crash of a Bangladesh Air Force training jet into a school in Dhaka has risen to 31, most of whom are pupils, officials said on Tuesday.
The Chinese-made F-7BGI fighter jet crashed into the two-storey Milestone School and College in the north of the capital on Monday.
The armed forces said in the afternoon that the death toll had risen to 31, without giving details.
Twenty deaths and some 171 wounded were reported on Monday. Seven more people died of their injuries overnight.
Earlier, Sayedur Rahman, an assistant to interim government head Muhammad Yunus, said the pilot and 25 children were among the 27 dead counted by that point.
The identity of six bodies could not be determined, he said. Some 78 people, mostly students and many with burn injuries, were undergoing treatment at different hospitals.
The crash occurred minutes after the plane took off on Monday afternoon, according to the Bangladeshi military.
It said that the pilot of the training aircraft noticed a technical malfunction soon after it took off from Dhaka's Kurmitola airbase.
At the time of the crash, many children were still at the school, which teaches children from elementary class up to 12th grade.
The government announced a day of national mourning on Tuesday.
The national flag has been lowered to half-mast at all public and private institutions.
Several hundred pupils demonstrated near the crash site, demanding a thorough investigation and an accurate death count.
The demonstration began as two senior advisers from the interim administration arrived at the scene in the morning.
The protesters chanted slogans such as "We want justice" and "Why did our brothers die? We demand answers!" effectively trapping the advisers and several senior officials inside the school building.
Pupils have alleged that authorities attempted to conceal the true number of casualties, a claim the government has dismissed as false.
Source: Qatar Tribune
