(MENAFN- The Peninsula) At least 116 people were killed yesterday when an Indonesian Air Force transport plane crashed into a city shortly after take-off and exploded in a fireball, officials said.
Buildings were left in ruins and cars reduced to flaming wrecks when Hercules C-130 came down in a residential area of Medan, a city of two million on the island of Sumatra.
Air Force chief Agus Supriatna said the manifest showed there were 113 people on board the plane - 12 crew and 101 passengers - when it crashed, and he did not believe any had survived.
"No, no. No survivors, I have just returned from the site," he said.
So far 84 bodies had been pulled from the debris and brought to a hospital in Medan, the hospital said.
Many passengers were likely to be family members of servicemen and women, said a spokesman for Medan Airbase from where the plane had departed.
At least one child has so far been confirmed killed.
Search and rescue officials said three people were killed on the ground when the 51-year-old plane went down near a newly-built residential area, hitting a massage parlour and a small hotel. Police said rescuers were still trying to get into the parlour, a three-storey building, and did not know whether there were people inside.
Rescue operation swung into action, with ambulances ferrying bodies from the site and crowds gathering around a police cordon to view the smouldering wreckage.
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