A military transport plane carrying 40 people crashed in eastern China's Anhui province, the government said on Sunday. A local official said at least five people were killed.
Villagers described a chaotic crash scene, with bodies and body parts strewn across a mountain slope where the plane crashed and burned.
The official Xinhua News Agency said the crash was being investigated. The Agency, however, could not inform about the casualities.
An official who answered the phone at the Anhui provincial government office said that the accident occurred around 4:00 pm (local time) in Yaocun, a village in Anhui's eastern Guangde county, and that five bodies had been recovered.
The official, who refused to give his name, said it was unclear how many people had been aboard the plane.
Guangde, about 200 kilometres southwest of Shanghai, encompasses a handful of low mountain villages famous for producing bamboo furniture.
A villager in Tongkai village, about five kilometres from the crash site in Yaocun, said many local villagers rushed to the area after hearing an explosion.
The man, who was reached by telephone and would only give his surname, Tang, said that the main body of the plane crashed into a mountain, destroying a section of bamboo forest.
{{/usCountry}}The man, who was reached by telephone and would only give his surname, Tang, said that the main body of the plane crashed into a mountain, destroying a section of bamboo forest.
{{/usCountry}}