Dozens killed in South Korea after plane veers off runway, bursts into flames
A passenger plane burst into flames Sunday after it skidded off a runway at a South Korean airport and slammed into a concrete fence when its front landing gear apparently failed to deploy, killing most of the 181 people on board, in one of the country’s worst aviation disasters.
The National Fire Agency (NFA) said rescuers raced to pull people from the Jeju Air passenger plane at the airport in the town of Muan, about 290 kilometres south of Seoul.
At least 176 people — 83 women, 82 men and 11 others whose genders weren’t immediately identifiable — died in the fire, the fire agency said. Emergency workers pulled two people, both crew members, to safety. Health officials said they are conscious and not in life-threatening condition.
Three people remained missing about nine hours after the incident.
Family members wailed as officials announced the names of some victims at a lounge in the Muan airport.
Footage of the crash aired by YTN television showed the plane skidding across the airstrip, apparently with its landing gear still closed, and colliding head-on with a concrete wall on the outskirts of the facility.
Local TV stations aired footage showing the plane engulfed in flame with thick pillows of black smoke billowing from it.
The fire agency deployed 32 fire trucks and several helicopters to contain the fire. About 1,560 firefighters, police officers, soldiers and other officials were also sent to the site, it said.
Emergency officials in Muan said they were examining the cause of the fire, initially saying the plane’s landing gear appeared to have malfunctioned.
Lee Jeong-hyeon, chief of the Muan fire station, told a televised briefing that the plane was completely destroyed, with only the tail assembly remaining recognizable among the wreckage. Lee said that workers were looking into various possibilities about what caused the crash, including whether the aircraft was struck by birds, Lee said.
Senior Transport Ministry official Joo Jong-wan said workers have retrieved the flight data and cockpit voice recorders of the plane’s black box, which will be examined by government experts investigating the cause of the crash and fire. Joo said the runway at the Muan airport will be closed until Jan. 1.
The Transport Ministry said the plane was a 15-year-old Boeing 737-800 jet that was returning from Bangkok when the crash happened at 9:03 a.m. local time, and its passengers included two Thai nationals.
Thailand’s prime minister, Paetongtarn Shinawatra, expressed deep condolences to the families of those affected by the accident through a post on the social platform X. Paetongtarn said she had ordered the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to provide assistance immediately.
In a televised news conference, Kim E-bae, Jeju Air’s president, deeply bowed with other senior company officials as he apologized to bereaved families and said he feels “full responsibility” for the incident. Kim said the company hadn’t identified any mechanical problems with the aircraft following regular checkups and that he would wait for the results of government investigations into the cause of the crash.
Boeing said in a statement on X it was in contact with Jeju Air and is ready to support the company in dealing with the crash.
“We extend our deepest condolences to the families who lost loved ones, and our thoughts remain with the passengers and crew,” Boeing said.
It’s one of the deadliest disasters in South Korea’s aviation history. The last time South Korea suffered a large-scale air disaster was in 1997 when an Korean Airline plane crashed in Guam, killing 228 people on board.
The incident came as South Korea is embroiled into a huge political crisis triggered by then-president Yoon Suk Yeol’s stunning imposition of martial law and ensuing impeachment.
On Friday, South Korean lawmakers also impeached acting president Han Duck-soo and suspended his duties, forcing Deputy Prime Minister Choi Sang-mok to take over.
Choi ordered officials to employ all available resources to rescue the passengers and crew, according to Yonhap news agency.
Yoon’s office said his chief secretary, Chung Jin-suk, will preside over an emergency meeting of senior presidential staff later on Sunday to discuss the crash.
Published at Sun, 29 Dec 2024 02:56:24 +0000
‘Miracle of nature’: Bergamot’s fragile revival in southern Italy
The beloved Italian poet Gabriele D’Annunzio is famously credited with describing the view from the Reggio Calabria boardwalk, where the Mediterranean and Ionian seas meet, as “the most beautiful kilometre in Italy.”
But beyond its stunning vistas, the mingling of the seas and the unique microclimate created by the tapering Apennine mountain range offer idyllic conditions for the citrus fruit bergamot.
Grown almost exclusively for centuries along a 90-kilometre strip of the Ionian coast, the toe of Italy’s boot, the fruit’s essential oil has been a prized ingredient in perfumes, luxury cosmetics and even Earle Grey tea, sought after for its complex, citrusy top note in perfumes and ability to fix scents to the skin.
“It’s a miracle of nature,” said Ezio Pizzi, president of the Bergamot Consortium, which in 2001 obtained the coveted Protected Designation of Origin (DOP) status from the Europe Union for the essential oil.
“To think this plant was brought from Sicily and planted here, 15 kilometres away, in this incredible microclimate that has endowed it with incredible qualities.”
Over time, Calabrians discovered the many benefits of the oil extracted from its skin of the fruit picked while still green — from repelling mosquitoes and flies to acting as a powerful disinfectant and enhancing the longevity and diffusion of a fragrance.
In the late 1960s, though, the invention of synthetic oil caused the value of natural bergamot to plummet, leading landowners to cut down their trees. For nearly 25 years, bergamot cultivation in the region ceased.
Then, in the early-’90s, the rise of organic products sparked renewed interest, especially from French perfumeries. Pizzi, a member of one of the few land-owning families who hadn’t destroyed their orchards, pulled together a group of producers and relaunched the essential oil production, forming a consortium.
“We were able to double the price from 18 cents a litre to 36 the first year,” he said. “Now we fetch as much as a euro a litre.”
Today, says Pizzi, the DOP area in Calabria produces 80 per cent of the world’s bergamot.
Yet, until just over a decade ago, the flesh of the fruit was cast aside — mostly fed to animals.
Prized juice once demonized
“I grew up with my mother telling me that if I ate bergamot, my hands would fall off,” said Vittorio Caminiti, a local historian and founder of the small, homey National Bergamot Museum, located up a flight of stairs off a side street in Reggio Calabria.
Criminiti says wealthy landowners demonized the fruit’s juice, claiming it was toxic to prevent local peasants from consuming it and thereby ensuring that the harvesting of bergamot remained solely in their control for oil extraction. Before industrialization, he says it took 400 bergamots to make just one litre of oil.
“If someone died? They’d eaten a bergamot. If a woman miscarried? She’d eaten a bergamot. Any ailment was blamed on bergamot,” he said. “There were too many trees to patrol, so instead of arresting or beating people for eating them, they created a myth.”
In the mid-1990s, Caminiti began experimenting with the juice, eventually realizing he had to wait until the bergamot ripened until it was orange to eat or drink. He entered a cake he made with bergamot juice in a contest and took home top prize.
Culinary media in Italy picked up the story, expressing outrage or incredulity.
“I’d give them bergamot recipes, then they’d call the head of the bergamot consortium, who told them I was crazy,” he said.
Health benefits
Soon after, the first scientific studies were undertaken in Italy, showing that bergamot juice lowers blood pressure and cholesterol, and later ones demonstrating a potential for managing diabetes.
The discovery of the juice’s health benefits has drawn in new producers to the market, such as Fabio Trunfio, 50, who operates Patea Bergamot Agricultural Company — a 20-minute drive from Pizzi’s groves.
Trunfio entered the bergamot oil market in 2007, expanding production to include juice and the sale of fruit in 2010.
Frustrated by what he says is Pizzi’s Bergamot Consortium’s failure to energetically promote the juice, he and other producers have launched a bid to have their own separate EU appellation: Protected Geographical Indication (IGP).
Like DOP, IGP focuses on the product’s regional reputation, but offers more flexibility in ensuring authenticity.
Trunfio and his group are also petitioning for IGP certification.
“Once we get our IGP, we’ll be able to go all out publicizing the amazing qualities of the juice from Calabrian bergamot,” said Trunfio, “and finally get a government certificate attesting to bergamot juice’s cholesterol-lowering properties.”
DOP consortium head Ezio Pizzi, though, is contesting Trunfio and others’ plan for an IGP — striving to retain control of the product through the more exclusive DOP, which he says it merits. He complains the new growers in the area are flooding the market, driving prices — already hit when duty-free perfume sales stalled during the pandemic — even lower.
As Calabria’s bergamot producers jostle for control of their brand, the larger issue of climate change looms. In all of Italy, worries are mounting over the vulnerability of monoculture farming, evident in everything from vineyards to olive groves.
But extreme summer temperatures and changes in rainfall patterns have struck southern Italian citrus growers particularly hard. Last summer, intense heat and drought in Sicily transformed oranges and lemons into hard, shrivelled nuts, with yields dropping by as much as 40 per cent.
For now, Calabria’s aquifers have been sufficient to make up for the lack of rainfall, with only a tiny part of the fruit suffering from heat. But producers warn that could change.
“We usually stop irrigating in September,” said Pizzi. “This year, it’s hardly rained a drop and for the first time I can ever remember, we’re still watering in December.”
He says he’s now in talks with regional politicians about setting up desalination plants or using greywater from sinks, showers or washing machines to use for irrigation.
But unless action is taken soon, Calabria risks watching its hard-won bounty, once again, slip away.
Published at Sun, 29 Dec 2024 09:00:00 +0000
