President Xi Jinping and other Chinese leaders have sent condolence messages to the leaders of Ethiopia and Kenya after an Ethiopian Airlines jet crashed on Sunday, killing 157 people including eight Chinese, Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said on Monday.

Chinese Party and state leaders extended condolences to victims' families. and were deeply concerned with the situation of Chinese citizens involved, Lu told a regular press conference in Beijing.

An Ethiopian Airlines flight crashed soon after taking off from Addis Ababa, capital of Ethiopia en route to Nairobi, capital of Kenya, on the morning of March 10 local time, killing all 149 passengers and eight crew members aboard.

"We feel deeply grieved for it. We express deep condolences to all victims and sincere sympathy to their families," Lu said.

According to Lu, the Chinese embassy in Ethiopia has established a coordination and liaison mechanism with the Ethiopian side and got into contact with the relatives of the Chinese citizens who died in the accident.

So far, the identities of the eight Chinese citizens have been confirmed.

Four are employees of Chinese companies, two work for the United Nations and the other two come from Liaoning and Zhejiang provinces.

"China hopes that the Ethiopia side can find out the cause of the accident as soon as possible and inform China of the investigation development in a timely manner, and appropriately handle the follow-up matters," Lu said.

The ministry and Chinese embassy in Ethiopia will continue to follow relevant development and make all-out effort to proactively assist the families with follow-up issues, he added.