Up to 15 dead in train smash

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A SUDAN Airways Airbus has skidded off the runway and caught fire after landing at Khartoum airport in foul weather, killing more than 100 people.

"Preliminary reports indicate that about half the 203 passengers on board are dead," a Sudanese television presenter said. There were 14 crew members on board.

The plane had just touched down from Amman via Damascus when the accident occurred, the television rports said, adding that weather conditions were poor and that the capital had been hit first by a sandstorm and then by heavy showers yesterday.

Airport director Yussef Ibrahim said the blaze was caused when an engine caught fire.

"There was an explosion in one of the engines and the plane caught fire," he said in a television interview.

"We cannot give exact figures," regarding victims, but "a large number of passengers are safe and well," he added.

Police official Mohammed Naguib al-Tayyeb had earlier told the broadcaster that most passengers had managed to escape the aircraft without injury but some had suffered burn wounds.

Emergency services had rushed to the aircraft in "numbers" and were fighting the blaze.

Families of passengers were waiting at the airport "in fear", the television said.

"Hospitals in Khartoum have received a great number of injured," the presenter said, adding that the casualties were in a stable condition.

Television pictures showed flames tearing through the upper section of the fuselage hours after the fire broke out and an emergency escape slide could be seen attached to one of the central doors of the plane.

Abbas al-Fadini, a member of the Sudanese parliament who was on the plane, told CNN television that the fire started from the right engine and then spread to the inside of the plane.

He said he was in the front of the plane and was among those who exited first. Crew members were guiding people to the exit and some injured passengers were sent to local hospitals, he added.

Sudanese Ambassador to the US John Ukec told CNN that the weather had been "terrible" when the plane landed in Khartoum.

"The plane veered of the runway. There was a lot of rain and a lot of mud and this caused the crash. It is a tragedy. The plane simply veered off the runway. There`s no terrorism involved.

"We have 203 passengers plus 14 crew members. So far they are saying under a hundred might have scorched in the accident. I think most of (the passengers) would be Sudanese nationals," he said.

In May this year, south Sudan`s defence minister was killed in a plane crash along with at least 22 other people, most of them senior members of the southern former rebel leadership.

Lieutenant General Dominic Dim Deng`s plane came down 375km from the southern capital Juba, killing everyone on board, including many army officers.

In July 2003, 115 people were killed when a Sudan Airways Boeing 737 was destroyed in a ball of fire as it attempted to land at the Red Sea coast resort of Port Sudan after apparently suffering an engine problem soon after takeoff.

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