PETALING JAYA: The wife of the Malaysian High Commissioner to Pakistan and several others were killed after a military helicopter they were in crashed into a school in Naltar Valley, Pakistan, on Friday.
Wisma Putra said in a statement that Datin Habibah Mahmud was on board the helicopter with her husband Datuk Dr. Hasrul Sani Mujtabar and several diplomats and spouses on an official programme when it crashed.
It said Hasrul Sani survived the crash and is being treated at Gilgit Hospital in Pakistan.
Hasrul Sani
"The Norwegian, Netherlands and Philippines ambassadors, together with the wife of the Indonesian ambassador perished in the incident," said the statement.
The Foreign Ministry said efforts are being made to obtain a full report on the incident.
AFP reported the envoys on board the chopper as Leif H. Larsen from Norway, Philippines ambassador Domingo D. Lucenario Jr, Polish ambassador Andrzej Ananiczolish and Dutch ambassador Marcel de Vink.
The two pilots of the helicopter were also killed.
It said a convoy of three helicopters was carrying a delegation of foreign diplomats and their aides to Pakistan's Gilgit-Baltistan territory, which is part of the disputed Kashmir region, where they were set to meet with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.
"Update Naltar: info so far; two pilots and two-three foreigners fatalities. Thirteen survivors with varying degree of injuries," tweeted Asim Bajwa, Pakistan's army spokesman.
"It was a diplomatic trip with members of 37 countries in total," said a passenger in one of the helicopters, who requested anonymity, adding that the school had caught fire after the crash.
"We have been told to send in as many ambulances as we can because the situation there is 'urgent'," said a senior official.
The injured were being air lifted to a military hospital in Gilgit, the region's administrative capital, some 50 kilometres (30 miles) to the southwest, added another senior local police official.
In the city of Gilgit, a hospital official said injured were being carried on stretchers to the emergency ward of the Combined Military Hospital.
