At least some of the among the thousands of Afghans who ran on to the tarmac at the Kabul airport, triggering chaos, have managed to flee on board US military planes.
Photos of the US Air Force's C-17 Globemaster III transport plane crammed with hundreds of scared Afghans sitting on the floor of the aircraft, to escape the wrath of the Taliban, have gone viral on social media.
The aircraft took a total of 640 Afghans, believed to be among the most people ever flown in the C-17, according to the news website Defense One.
The plane flew to Qatar, where the Afghans disembarked, the website reported. None of them including women and children appear to be carrying any luggage as they left in a last-minute desperate dash to save their lives when the Taliban suddenly walked into Kabul. The picture of the packed flight depicts the tragic chaos that Afghanistan has descended into in a matter of days.
Video clips also show two US Apache attack helicopters flying low over the tarmac to disperse the crowd and clear the runway for the C-17's take-off run.
American forces had to fire in the air at the Kabul airport on Monday to prevent desperate Afghans running onto the tarmac to board military flights in an attempt to flee from the Taliban.
A US official said that military flights from Kabul are “only meant to ferry diplomats, foreign staff, and local embassy staff”. "The crowd was out of control," the official told Reuters news agency. "The firing was only done to defuse the chaos."
Commercial flights have now been banned from Kabul airport while evacuations continued on military flights. This has shut off the last quick opening available for Afghans fleeing the country.
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The Afghanistan airspace has also been shut an Air India flight coming from Chicago to New Delhi was diverted at the last minute.
Thousands of Afghans have jammed the airport trying to get out of the country after Taliban insurgents entered the capital on Sunday.
Some have been complaining on social media that the US has taken over their airport and not allowing them to fly out.
Most people in Kabul are terribly scared over reprisals from the Taliban and hundreds of them have rushed to airport in a desperate attempt to leave the country. Some of them have even abandoned their cars on the roads.
There have also been long queues outside cash dispensing machines in Kabul to withdraw their life savings as the future is uncertain.
