Rescuers in the Nigerian
city of Kano pulled the charred bodies of children from the rubble of homes destroyed by an airliner crash which officials said had killed well over 100 people.
The dead included all 76 people on board the plane and dozens killed in the rundown suburb where it plunged to earth soon after takeoff yesterday, razing or setting ablaze houses, a mosque and a school.
"Men formed a line, passing the bodies from the rubble to waiting buses," said a witness in the densely populated district of Gwammaja.
"I saw the bodies of many children wrapped in straw mats. I counted more than 10 in a short time," he said. "The place was filled with smoke and men were yelling orders. It was very chaotic."
One of the buildings hit was a mosque and another a Koranic school, whose pupils had just broken off to join their parents in nearby homes for prayers, rescuers said.
A christening ceremony was in full swing in one of the houses when the BAC 1-11-500, operated by local company EAS Airlines, ploughed through it.
The airliner had been bound for the commercial capital Lagos from the northern city.
Government officials said they believed Nigeria's Sports Minister Ishaya Mark Aku was among the dead.
Ezekiel Gomos, government Secretary of the nearby state of Plateau from whose capital, Jos, the flight originated, said Mr Aku had been returning from a political meeting in Jos to go to watch an international soccer friendly between Nigeria and Kenya in Lagos.
"We contacted Government House Kano and they confirmed that the minister was on the flight when it left for Lagos after the stopover in Kano," Gomos told Reutersby phone.