World News for Students of English

30-03-2015 07:00

This aerial footage shows the scene in the French Alps where a Germanwings flight crashed this morning, killing all of those on board. Debris can be seen strewn over an area of hundreds of metres, as rescuers work to try to recover bodies. The flight from Barcelona to Düsseldorf went down at around 11 a.m. local time and authorities say none of the 144 passengers and six crew could have survived.

Among the passengers were 16 school children and two teachers from a German school. The students were in the 10th grade and had been taking part in an exchange programme in Spain. It’s also thought that two babies were on board the flight.

Crisis centres have now been setup as distressed relatives of the passengers arrived at airports in Spain and Germany to try to find out more information about what happened to their loved ones.

Lufthansa, which owns the Germanwings airline, says it believes the crash was an accident rather than foul play, but it’s still working to establish the exact cause. The airline believes there were 67 Germans on the flight, while Spain’s Deputy Prime Minister said 45 passengers had Spanish names. One Belgian was also on board. French police at the crash site say it could take days to recover the bodies due to difficult terrain, snow and incoming storms.

Difficult words: debris (pieces of something broken), strew (to spread over an area), exchange programme (when students visit a country in exchange for students from that country visiting their country), foul play (criminal behaviour resulting in somebody’s death), establish (to get to know), due to (because of), terrain (land features such as mountains or rocks).

Source: www.ondemandnews.com