Hundreds of students gathered outside the smoldering remains of a school in the Bangladeshi capital on Tuesday to demand answers after a military jet slammed into the campus, killing dozens of children.
An ordinary school day turned into terror on Monday when a Bangladesh Air Force jet suffered a mid-air mechanical fault and ploughed into the Milestone School and College in Dhaka, engulfing the two-story building in flames and smoke.
Young students were finishing up afternoon classes and parents had gathered outside the gates to greet their children when the aircraft hit, killing at least 31 people – including 25 children – in the country’s deadliest air incident in recent memory. Some 165 others were left injured, according to the armed forces public relations directorate (ISPR), many with severe burns.
That most of the dead and injured are young children has compounded the tragedy that shocked the nation of 171 million people and sent the country into national mourning.
As police and air force personnel worked at the scene to retrieve parts of the crashed plane on Tuesday, the gathered crowd began shouting at officials, with some students telling CNN they believe the death toll may be higher than officially released.
