(dpa) - Rescuers continued to search the wreckage of an airplane Wednesday that crashed into a populated commercial district of the eastern Congolese town of Goma Tuesday, killing at least 19 people, an official said.
The DC-9 airliner caught fire shortly after take off and at first only six people on board were believed to have survived, but further investigation showed most of the 79 passengers had escaped alive.
"There are at least 120 injured people, which includes those passengers who managed to escape the crash and people in the commercial area that were wounded when the plane hit," said Yann Bonzon, head of the International Committee of the Red Cross' mission in Goma.
"Rescue personnel are still on site to see if there are bodies or people stuck under the plane or in the homes the plane landed on," he said, adding that the number of dead and wounded was likely to change during the course of the day.
Congo has one of the world's worst plane crash records, with old, badly maintained planes being used to ferry Congolese around the vast country the size of Western Europe which has only about 500 kilometres of paved road.
