A Taiwan aircraft on a flight from the beach resort of Bali crashed last night at Taipei international airport, ploughing in flames through a perimeter wall and pulverising nearby houses.
All 197 passengers and crew were feared dead. Others died in homes obliterated by the blazing aircraft.
On board the China Airlines Airbus A300-600R were the governor of Taiwan's central bank, Mr Hsu Yuan-tung, his wife and three bank officials. They were returning from a conference on Asia's economic woes at Indonesia's Bali island.
Most of the dead were Taiwanese tourists on their way home from holiday.
None of the 182 passengers and 15 crew aboard the aircraft was known to have survived the crash, the result of a failed landing, officials said.
There were several foreigners aboard but their number and nationalities were not known, officials added.
The aircraft crashed in thick fog shortly after 8 p.m. on a second attempt to land at Taipei's Chiang Kai-shek International Airport. A resident in one of the homes hit by the plane said from hospital last night that he was watching television when the roof fell in and the lights went out.
A 10-year-old boy was plucked from a wrecked home but died in hospital. Rescue workers also found an infant alive in the ruins.
A weeping women wailed outside another mangled home: "There were people inside," she screamed. "Everything is finished."
Flaming wreckage and body parts were scattered over a wide area, obstructing sections of a coastal highway that passes by the airport.
"In view of the gravity of the situation at the crash site, it would be very difficult for anyone to survive such a terrible disaster," said Mr Wei Shunchih, deputy airport director.
It is the second crash of an Airbus originating in Indonesia since last September when 234 people died in a crash on Sumatra. That plane went down during forest fires that had reduced visibility.
"Judging from the scene there is little chance of there being any survivors," an airport official said.
The crash area was a scene of total devastation, with bodies wrapped in white plastic lined up in long rows as rescue workers scoured the wreckage for signs of life.
Television footage last night showed blazing brick buildings and the shattered carcass of China Airlines Flight CI676. The disaster occurred as many families in nearby homes were finishing their evening meal.
"First I heard a great explosion and then the sky suddenly brightened," said a 60-year-old woman.
Taiwan's Central News Agency likened the crash to an April 1994 disaster at Japan's Nagoya airport involving another China Airlines A300-600R. More than 260 people perished in that crash. The plane came down at Nagoya after a go-around manoeuvre following an aborted initial landing.
Yesterday's crash delivers a grave blow to an industry that has been badly-battered by Asia's economic meltdown. The regional slump has slashed passenger levels and stirred concern that cost-cutting by airlines could hurt safety standards.