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No survivors among the 132 onboard the plane that crashed in China
Investigators still do not know why the Boeing 737-800 crashed into a hillside in China
March 23, 2022 2:23pm
Updated: March 23, 2022 6:01pm
Chinese aviation authorities confirmed on Tuesday that there were no survivors among the 132 individuals on board the China Eastern Airlines Boeing 737-800 that crashed on Monday in mountainous Teng County.
"So far, search and rescue teams have found no survivors," Zhu Tao, director of the Aviation Safety Bureau, stated in the first official comment on the crash, DW News reported.
Although the reasons for the accident are still unknown, search teams managed to recover one of the plane's black boxes. Rescue efforts are still ongoing on the hillside where the aircraft crashed.
Flight MU5735 was en route between the cities of Kunming and Canton and had taken off at 1:15 p.m. local time before crashing in the Guangxi region at 2:38 p.m. local time.
A video shared on social media shows a fire on the hillside where the accident occurred.
🔴 #AHORA | 133 personas llevaba el Boeing 737 que se estrelló en el sur de China. pic.twitter.com/qWMWm0pth8
— Mundo en Conflicto 🌎 (@MundoEConflicto) March 21, 2022
Following the accident, Chinese President Xi Jinping called for the "immediate activation of emergency mechanisms" for rescue work and subsequent investigation to determine the cause of the incident. More than 600 operatives were activated.
Twenty-three fire trucks and 117 rescuers were deployed from Wuzhou, the city closest to the accident. However, Rescue work was delayed because the hillside where the plane crashed is inaccessible by road, and firefighters had to travel part of the way on foot, reported El Mundo.
State-owned China Eastern Airlines, headquartered in Shanghai, is one of Asia's largest airlines and the first to be listed on the New York and Hong Kong stock exchanges. It has a fleet of 730 aircraft flying to 170 countries, serving more than 130 million people each year.
