Searchers race against clock, intensify efforts to discover plane's black boxes

No survivors have been found so far after a China Eastern Airlines plane crashed on Monday in South China's Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, local authorities said on Tuesday.

Also on Tuesday, more than 2,000 search and rescue workers intensified efforts to recover the aircraft's two black boxes, or flight data recorders, to investigate the cause of the tragedy.

Flight MU5735 left Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province, at 1:11 pm on Monday and was scheduled to arrive in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, at 3:05 pm. Air traffic controllers lost track of the plane over Wuzhou, Guangxi, at 2:21 pm.

The flight was carrying 123 passengers and nine crew members, all Chinese nationals.

As of 9 pm on Tuesday, no survivors had been found, said Sun Shiying, chairman of China Eastern Airlines, at a news conference held in Wuzhou on Tuesday night by the investigation team of the State Council, China's Cabinet.

Sun said the company had established contact with relatives of all the passengers within 24 hours. The airline will provide care based on their needs.

Zhu Tao, director of the Civil Aviation Administration of China's Aviation Safety Office, said at the news conference that the aircraft was severely damaged, which poses a huge challenge to the investigation of the cause of the crash.

"We are still at the preliminary stage of the investigation, so we cannot make any judgment. The key task now is to locate the two black boxes. We will immediately inform the public when the cause is confirmed," Zhu said.