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76 confirmed dead in Brazilian soccer team’s plane crash’ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=”][/av_heading]
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COLOMBIA – Police have confirmed 76 died when a plane carrying Brazilian football club Chapecoense crashed in Colombia.
The Serie A side was scheduled to play the first leg of the Copa Sudamericana final against Atletico Nacional on Wednesday at Medellin’s Estadio Atanasio Girardot.
But the plane, carrying 72 passengers and nine crew, crashed en route from Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia, coming down in Cerro Gordo in the municipality of La Union.
Authorities reported the plane declared an emergency at 10 p.m. local time with apparent power failures.
“Six people were rescued alive, but unfortunately one died. The rest of the occupants unfortunately died. The tragic toll is 76 victims,” regional police commander Jose Gerardo Acevedo told reporters.
Players Alan Ruschel and Jakson Ragnar Follmann and flight attendant Ximena Suarez are among the survivors, according to Colombia’s civil aviation authority.
CONMEBOL, the South American football confederation, has suspended “all activities” until further notice.
Brazil and Barcelona star Neymar led tributes to the victims and survivors of the plane crash involving Chapecoense.
“Impossible to believe in this tragedy, impossible to believe in the event, impossible to believe that the plane crashed, impossible to believe that athletes, humans were on this plane, impossible to believe that these people left their families…,” he wrote in a post on his Instagram account.
“Today the world cries, but heaven rejoices in receiving champions. My feelings [go out] to all [the victims’] family and friends,” he wrote in a post on his Instagram account.
Lionel Messi and Argentina’s national soccer team flew from Buenos Aires to Brazil on the same chartered plane just 20 days prior to the accident. (AP)
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