UK's Gujarati community feels the pain of Air India disaster

Among the 242 people on the doomed Air India flight from Ahmedabad were 53 Britons, including the lone survivor. 

Ahmedabad is the main city of the Gujarat region, and the UK's Gujarati diaspora numbers something like half of the British Indian population. The crash has prompted prayers and gatherings across the UK with more planned in the coming days.

In London's Wembley neighborhood, there's a somber air. A group of women in the temple sing prayers for the crash victims as a steady stream of people come to pay their respects.  

Many say they had known passengers on board flight AI171. One woman had attended the wedding of a female passenger who had died.  

A local family with two young children are also among the dead. They lived just a few minutes from the Brent Indian Association, which has opened a book of condolence. Chairman Sunjit Mehta is planning to visit the relatives of the local family as well as others needing support.

"It's quite daunting for the family members to have to wait around until the bodies are handed over to them," Mehta tells CGTN Europe. "We'll visit them and others in case we can be of any help."

Meanwhile the association's former chairman Rajnikant Patel lost friends and family in the tragedy. "It's not easy to explain or express the feeling of myself or the family," he tells CGTN, "but everyone feels very bad, saddened about the incident."

There was only qualified good news for one family in the UK – that of lone survivor, Vishwashkumar Ramesh. On Friday, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited him and others injured by the crash in hospital. 

Ramesh told India's DD News that he could not believe how he was able to escape alive.

"I thought 'I'm also going to die' and when I opened my eyes, I felt alive, so I tried to remove the seatbelt, and I was able to get away from there. In front of my eyes the air hostesses and other aunties, uncles had all died."

While Ramesh's family are thankful for his miraculous survival, they are also mourning his brother Ajay, who died on the flight. Like many British Indians with Gujarati heritage, they are coming to terms with a huge feeling of loss.