Originally Posted by
UltraFan
Kudos where kudos due. From a BBC interview with the survivor: "Then we started helping people who had been hurt. It was dark. We were lighting with cell phone lights. Helping out each other. All the guys trying to take out people. Because there was high risk of fire".
There have been blood drives as well, overcrowding at hospitals with people offering help.
Perhaps Almaty is a unique place in that the airport is practically the only game in town to get out of the area (not including a 48+ hour train ride), so anyone of any means has traveled out of there from the same half dozen airlines many times, on the same types of flights in the dark, ice, and fog. The population is also only 1.7 million isolated people so with 100 people you start playing six degrees of Kevin Bacon and get a lot of people in the same area affected more than we might think is typical. It's also the first day of Christmas break for schoolchildren so a lot of people are themselves traveling (remember Christmas is Jan 7 there).