A passenger plane carrying more than 130 people has crashed into the mountains of China's rural Guangxi region.
As reported by BBC News, the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAA) has confirmed that the China Eastern Airlines plane has crashed into the countryside near Wuzhou city.
The CAA confirmed that there were 123 passengers and nine crew members on board the Boeing 737-800 jet.
"The Civil Aviation Administration of China Eastern Airlines has activated the emergency response mechanism after a Boeing 737 crashed," the CAA said in a statement, per CNN.
Reports state that the flight number of the plane was MU5735, and it left Kunming at 13:11 local time (05:11 GMT). It had been scheduled to land in Guangzhou at 15:05.
There has been no confirmation on the number of casualties or the reasons for the crash.
Images and videos shared by state media and on social media show fire spreading throughout the woodland, with plumes of smoke billowing into the sky as a result of the wreckage.
Rescue crews and CAA personnel have been dispatched to the crash site, and have since confirmed that the fire has been extinguished.
Flight-tracking sites show that the jet was in the air for a little over an hour, as it approached its destination. FlightRadar24 data states that the flight ended at 14:22 local time, at an altitude of 3,225ft.
As of this writing, China Eastern Airlines is yet to comment on the crash, but local media has reported that it had changed its website to black and white as a sign of mourning. The company has also greyed out its logo on its official Weibo page.
BBC News adds that there has not been a major incident with a Chinese airline for 12 years, when a flight from Harbin crashed in Yichun in August 2010. Forty-two people died in that incident.
Our thoughts are with the family and loved ones of all of those onboard.
