Rain hampers work near impact point

On Wednesday afternoon, two days after the crash of Flight MU5735, it was raining in Molang, a village near the scene of the disaster in the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region.

Some relatives of passengers who were on board the Boeing 737-800 burst into tears as they watched rescuers and excavators working in a mountainous area where loved ones could lie buried.

They left white and yellow chrysanthemums－a flower that Chinese traditionally use to pay tribute to the dead.

One relative was quoted as saying by People's Daily, "We have come here to see things with our own eyes."

The plane, operated by China Eastern Airlines, left Kunming, capital of Yunnan province, at 1:11 pm on Monday for Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong province. Air traffic controllers lost track of the jet, which was carrying 123 passengers and nine crew members, over Wuzhou.

The plane crashed at about 2:30 pm, Xinhua News Agency reported.

Rescue workers were deployed quickly and on a large scale. The first rescue team, from Tengxian county, Wuzhou, arrived at the crash site at 3:50 pm on Monday. Now, more than 2,000 rescuers, including firefighters, armed police officers and army personnel, are working at the scene, according to the local headquarters.

The Molang village committee and the local primary school have been turned into temporary rescue headquarters. During breaks, rescuers sit in the school playground for a brief time. Some of them sleep on the floor in classrooms.

More than 100 villagers have formed a volunteer team. Dressed in red waistcoats, they help with the transportation of rescue materials.

One villager was quoted by People's Daily as saying, "We do whatever we can."

As the road into the village is extremely narrow, it is hard for large vehicles to enter. The report said villagers have helped bring in rescue materials on their motorcycles, which to some extent has eased transportation difficulties.

By 7 pm on Wednesday, rescuers had searched an area covering 46,000 square meters, but failed to find survivors.

One of the aircraft's two black boxes found on Wednesday, believed to be the cockpit voice recorder, was sent to Beijing for decoding, according to Zhu Tao, head of the aviation safety office of the Civil Aviation Administration of China.

He said the exterior of the black box was severely damaged, but its data storage unit survived relatively intact.

Zhu said downloading and decoding the data would take time, and this process could be prolonged further if the internal storage unit is damaged.