113 Feared Dead in Nepal Crash; 100 Die in China : Tragedy: Twenty-six, including a baby, survive failed takeoff, explosion in Nanjing.

A Chinese airliner with 126 people aboard crashed and exploded into flames on takeoff in the eastern city of Nanjing on Friday, killing at least 100 people and injuring the rest, the state-run New China News Agency reported.

A 10-month-old baby was among the survivors, according to the news agency’s photo department in Beijing. Her mother apparently died.

The Soviet-made Yakovlev 42, carrying 116 passengers and 10 crew members, “failed to lift off and burst into a ball of flames” about 2,000 feet from the runway, the agency reported.

Photographs from the scene showed rescue workers standing around a large, charred piece of fuselage and rows of bodies lying on the ground covered with sheets.

Four residents of Hong Kong and two from Taiwan were among the dead, officials said today; there were no other foreigners on the flight from Nanjing to the coastal city of Xiamen.

The plane crashed at 3:10 p.m. but the news agency did not report the accident until 10 hours later and then only sketchily.

Nanjing, 590 miles south of Beijing, is the capital of Jiangsu province and was the national capital in the 1930s and 1940s.

Vice Premier Zhu Rongji visited the injured in hospitals Friday evening, the news agency said. It said Nanjing airport later resumed service.

The Yakovlev 42, powered by three turbofan engines, was designed for short hauls and was introduced in 1975, according to Jane’s All the World’s Aircraft.

The news agency said the plane was operated by the China General Purpose Airline Co., a little-known airline based in Xian.