Passengers8217; families leave for Taiwan on a wing and prayer

Hyderabad, November 1: Taipei never seemed as far away from Hyderabad as it did on Wednesday. Eleven of the 12 passengers from Andhra Prad...

Hyderabad, November 1: Taipei never seemed as far away from Hyderabad as it did on Wednesday. Eleven of the 12 passengers from Andhra Pradesh who were on the Singapore Airways flight that crashed at Taipei on Tuesday are feared dead, and for their relatives and family members, lack of information from Taipei only heightened their agony.

The relatives of 11 passengers left on Wednesday for Taiwan on a wing and prayer via Chennai. The family of two passengers, Janardhan and his wife Neelima, will leave on Friday since they couldn8217;t reach Hyderabad on time. Roads amp; Buildings Minister K. Vijayarama Rao, who8217;s supervising arrangements to help the relatives, said, 8220;Only one is safe and the remaining are either missing or dead.8221;

Among those who flew out were Col Retd S.L. Reddy and his wife Indira. Reddy8217;s son-in-law Kommera Srinivas, daughter Kommera Sangeetha and their two children are among the passengers on the Los Angeles-bound SQ 006.

Srinivas, who has been staying in L.A. since 1982, is a senior director with Universal Electronics Inc. He married Sangeetha, a dentist, eight years ago. 8220;They came to stay with us for a month and left on Tuesday. We were informed about the mishap by Srinivas8217;s parents. We don8217;t know about their condition as the officials have no information,8221; Reddy said.

Several of the passengers are Indians settled or working abroad who had returned on family visits, some to take their parents back with them.

California-based software engineer Volam Janardhan 31 came to India with his wife Uppala Neelima last month along with their nine-month-old son, Akash. The boy was born in the US itself, and the couple had come to India to perform his tonsuring ceremony. Their names do not figure either in the list of survivors or that of the injured.

8220;My cousin Rabia had come from Los Angeles a month ago to take my aunt and uncle along with her,8221; said Faheem, nephew of Mohammed Moinuddin Khan and Noorjahan Begum, who along Rabia were aboard the flight. Rabia, the eldest daughter of Moinuddin Khan 70 and Noorjahan 60, is a doctor by profession in LA and had come to Hyderabad to take her parents back with her.

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8220;My aunt Noorjahan had not well, and we thought of getting her treated in the US,8221; said Faheem, who left with Noorjahan8217;s son Parveen for Taiwan.

Another passenger, Raju Penumatcha was on his way to Los Angeles on official work. Hailing from Hyderabad, Penumatcha works with a Chennai-based company, Stradlite Industries.

The only passenger who8217;s confirmed to be safe is Koppaka Somasekhara Vara Prasad, who spoke to his parents on Tuesday night. 8220;We were not aware about the plane crash till we received a phone call from our son,8221; his relieved father, Koppaka Chakravarthy, said. Vara Prasad, an L.A. based software engineer, left on Tuesday after spending three weeks with his parents.