KARACHI: At least 8 crewmembers have reportedly died as a Russian-made cargo plane crashed into under construction buildings shortly after takeoff near Dalmia area of Gulistan-e-Johar locality in Karachi, Geo News reported Saturday night.

The crash site is on fierce fire with blue flames raging sky-high meanwhile, rescue activities have been kicked off as the fire tenders, law enforcement agencies, police officials have made their ways to the crash site.

Video footages suggested thick raging fire with blue and yellow flames is emitting from the incident site as the blaze has grappled nearby located buildings.

An under construction building has been completely collapsed in result of plane crash, residents of the area said.

Emergency has been declared in the area as police have cordoned off the entry leading to crash site. Emergency has also been declared at all the major hospitals in Karachi.

The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) said the plane had gone down after taking off from Karachi airport.

Spokesman of CAA, Pervez George said it was a Russian-built cargo plane that was bound for Sudan and casualties were feared.

The nationality of the deceased persons is not known yet. The plane was carrying cargo weighing 31 tonnes.

According to initial reports, it was a Russian-made cargo plane. Dalmia is a thickly populated area near Gulistan-e-Johar so more deaths have been feared.

Earlier, people claimed hearing a powerful explosion, which turned a plane crash.

Hundreds of people have arrived on the spot while the crash site is on fire and thick smoke is emitting from the scene, eyewitnesses said.

Another eyewitness Adnan, talking to Geo News, said the left engine of the plane caught fire first then, while preparing to take turn, it crashed into ground.

Reports said there were 8 crewmembers on board which was bound to Khartoom, the capital of Sudan.

The SEA-ME-WE 4 cable linking Europe with the Middle East and South Asia was cut on Wednesday, 14th April in the Mediterranean Sea.

It became inoperable due to a “shunt fault” approximately 1,886 kilometers from Alexandria towards Palermo, Italy in the S4 section of the cable.

A shunt fault occurs when the submarine cable insulation becomes damaged and a short circuit occurs when it comes into contact with water. While repairs are underway it is likely that the outage will take a further 4 days at a minimum and might take up to 10 days depending on weather and sea conditions.

Until today, SEA-ME-WE-4 was operating with limited capacity, however, today starting 12 PM Pakistan Time, all west bound traffic from Egypt onwards has been shut down.

Meaning that all traffic to Europe and US (from Pakistan) may face higher latency – but not the blackout due to redundant/alternate pipes available for usage. Though they cost extra to service providers because of shift of all traffic load to secondary pipes.

In a telephonic communication a Transworld official told ProPakistani that Transworld has bought additional capacity, worth millions of dollars, for eastbound routes, initially landing at Singapore via Japan to United States and then to Europe.

This will increase the route distance hence the latency, but traffic will not be impacted at large, said the official.

Transworld and PTCL are only operators selling international voice and data traffic in Pakistan.

Transworld, that is a sister concern of Mobilink and a project of Orascom has 40 percent market share in Pakistan for International traffic, with major operators such as Wateen, Worldcall, wi-tribe, Neyatel etc on its network.

SINGAPORE: Oil fell in Asian trade Wednesday as sentiment was dampened by a private report showing weaker US energy demand, analysts said.

New York’s main contract, light sweet crude for April delivery was seven cents lower at 79.61 dollars a barrel.

Brent North Sea crude for April delivery dropped four cents to 78.14 dollars a barrel.

The American Petroleum Institute (API), an industry group, said late Tuesday crude stocks in the country rose by 2.67 million barrels in the past week while gasoline reserves increased 909,000 barrels.

Distillate stocks, which include heating fuel, fell 4.07 million barrels.

“I think the crude build-up is certainly bearish so inventories remain high,” said Victor Shum, a Singapore-based analyst with energy consultancy Purvin and Gertz.

“The fundamentals will prevent pricing from being sustainable at the 80-plus dollar level,” he said.

The API report is usually released a day before the weekly US Department of Energy (DoE) report on petroleum stocks movements.

Analysts polled by Dow Jones expect the DoE report to show crude stocks rising by one million barrels but distillate stocks is seen declining by 700,000 barrels.

Gasoline reserves are likely to rise by 700,000 barrels, the poll results showed..