100 Killed in Chinese Plane Crash : Disaster: Airliner explodes in eastern city of Nanjing after wrecking on takeoff. Government reports some survivors.

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

A 10-month-old baby was among the survivors, according to the Xinhua 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, Xinhua reported.

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

It was not immediately known if any foreigners were on the flight, bound for the southern coastal city of Xiamen.

The airliner crashed at 3:10 p.m. (12:10 a.m. PDT) but Xinhua did not report the accident for 10 hours.

Chinese authorities often are reluctant to disclose news of accidents out of fear they will reflect badly on the government. Some disasters are never reported.

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

Vice Premier Zhu Rongji visited the injured in hospitals Friday night, Xinhua said. It said Nanjing airport later resumed service.

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

The Soviet Union pulled the planes from service between 1982 and 1984 after an accident. A Yakovlev-42 crash last September in Russia killed at least four people.

The news agency did not report the age of the plane, which was operated by the China General Purpose Airline Co., a little-known airline based in Xian.

China used to have only one state-run airline, the Civil Aviation Administration of China, but it was split into regional airlines several years ago. Local governments also have set up airlines to serve their cities, often buying used planes from larger companies.

China’s last major plane accident was on Oct. 2, 1990, when a hijacked jet crashed into two other planes at Canton’s airport, killing 128 people.