Rescuers scoured heavily forested mountain slopes in southern China on Tuesday looking for victims and flight recorders from a China Eastern Airlines passenger jet that crashed a day earlier with 132 people on board.
Parts of the Boeing 737-800 were strewn among trees charred by fire after China’s first crash of a commercial jetliner since 2010. Burnt remains of identity cards and wallets were also seen, state media said.
Flight MU5735 was travelling to the port city of Guangzhou from Kunming, capital of the southwestern province of Yunnan, when it suddenly plunged from cruising altitude and crashed in the mountains of Guangxi less than an hour before it was due to land.
Chinese media carried brief highway video images from a vehicle’s dashboard camera that appeared to show a jet diving to the ground at an angle of about 35 degrees from the vertical. Reuters could not immediately verify the footage.
Si, 64, a villager near the crash site who declined to give his first name, told Reuters he heard a “bang, bang” at the time of the crash.
“It was like thunder,” he said.
State media, which described the situation as “grim”, have said the possibility of the deaths of all on board could not be ruled out.
The crash site was hemmed in by mountains on three sides, state media said, with just one tiny path providing access. Rain was forecast in the area this week. Excavators were clearing a path to the site on Tuesday, images on state television showed.
Earlier, video images from the People’s Daily, the official newspaper of the ruling Communist Party, showed search and rescue workers and paramilitary forces scaling tree-covered hillocks and placing markers wherever debris was found.
Police set up a checkpoint at Lu village, on the approach to the site, and barred journalists from entering.
Several people gathered near the crash site on Tuesday for a small Buddhist ceremony.
