Cameroon finds Kenya plane, no word of survivors

By Tansa Musa

YAOUNDE (Reuters) - The wreckage of a Kenya Airways plane that crashed with 114 people on board was found in a swamp a short distance from Cameroon's Douala airport on Sunday, officials said, but there was no word of any survivors.

The Boeing 737-800, carrying passengers from more than 20 countries, vanished on Saturday shortly after taking off from Douala for Nairobi in torrential rain.

The wreckage was found 20 km (12 miles) southeast of the airport along the plane's flight path, Kenya Airways said.

"All I can say for now is that the wreckage of the plane has been located in the small village of Mbanga Pongo, in the Douala III subdivision. We are putting in place rescue measures," Cameroon's Minister of State for Territorial Administration Hamidou Yaya Marafa told a news conference.

"For now we cannot say whether there were any survivors or not. Access to the area is very difficult," he said. "We are beginning a new painful phase. Our task will be more difficult now, the task of recovering the corpses."

A search party located the wreckage, but a helicopter was unable to land in the mangrove swamp, Celeste Mandeng of Cameroon's Civil Protection Service told Reuters.

"The mangrove area is a very tricky area, access is very difficult. I think they will use trekking and boats," he said.

It was more than 100 km (60 miles) from the zone where radar-equipped helicopters, ground search parties and villagers on motorbikes had spent much of the weekend combing thick tropical forest.