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.

Blackened oranges

On Tuesday morning, a Xinhua reporter who arrived at the crash site described the scene as "charred mountains, broken branches and blackened oranges scattered all over the place".

Before the crash, the area was home to a forest of citrus fruit trees.

When the accident occurred, a huge explosion and heavy smoke attracted locals' attention.

Shi Zhulan, a villager in Wuzhou, was working in the fields with a younger sister when the plane came down. "Suddenly, my sister shouted 'plane'. I looked up and saw the white nose of an aircraft crashing down from the sky," Shi was quoted by Xinhua as saying.

Shi said that when the explosion occurred, triggering smoke and fire, some fragments of the plane disappeared into the distance.

Fellow villager Chen Weihao, who was on a hillside near the crash site, told Xinhua the plane appeared to be largely intact when it plunged down. He said he saw flames and heavy smoke at the scene.

Local residents said they often see planes fly over the village. Because the jet crashed in the mountains, no villagers were killed or injured.

Photos and video clips show that the main crash site is about half the size of a soccer field, but debris was scattered over a wide area, even on the other side of the mountains, according to Xinhua.

Rescue workers at the scene face many difficulties, according to the local headquarters.

For example, the crash site is surrounded by mountains on three sides, and there is the risk of rainfall and landslides adding to their problems.

On Tuesday, Zheng Xi, head of the Guangxi regional fire and rescue corps, said at a news conference: "Given that the crash site is located in a mountain forest with narrow roads and gullies, it's hard to carry out the rescue work, but we're doing our best."

The search area has been expanded to a 20-kilometer radius of the site.

Zhu Xiaodong, a rescue worker from Guangzhou, said drones have also been used to search for evidence from the crash over an area of nearly 680,000 square meters.

Heavy rain in the past two days has also made the work more difficult, forcing large-scale search and rescue operations to be suspended on Wednesday.

China Central Television reported that the rainfall has softened the soil, and there is the possibility of small-scale landslides at the crash site, meaning that rescuers have to carry out drainage work in addition to searches.

The report said that if the rain continues, work at the main crash area will become hindered by the muddy conditions. If there is a landslide, it might cover wreckage from the aircraft, adding to the problems.

Sympathy, condolences

The crash triggered widespread public attention and concern in China and overseas. By Thursday afternoon, at least 200 topics involving Flight MU5735 had appeared on Sina Weibo. More than 30 of them had been viewed more than 100 million times each.

While closely following the search and rescue work, many netizens have expressed their sympathy for those on board.

A Sina Weibo user said in a post on Wednesday: "I dreamed that a survivor was trapped in the mountain forest, and that he was found after he knocked on pipelines. I picked up my phone to confirm this, even though I knew it was probably unlikely."

Dignitaries and international organizations from many countries have also voiced deep condolences over the crash.

According to the official UN Sina Weibo account, Antonio Guterres, the international organization's secretary-general, expressed his condolences to family members of the victims, the Chinese government and the Chinese people. The International Civil Aviation Organization also said it was saddened by the tragic loss, sending its deepest condolences to all those affected by the disaster.

Overseas leaders, including Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and United Kingdom Prime Minister Boris Johnson, said on social media platforms they were saddened to learn about the crash, adding that their thoughts are with the victims and their family members.

In addition, several ministries of foreign affairs, including those from Singapore, Turkey and Iran, along with the embassies of the United States, Indonesia, Iceland and New Zealand, expressed their condolences.