Plane with 150 on board crashes in Indian Ocean

Moroni: An airliner belonging to Yemeni state carrier Yemenia Air crashed in the Indian Ocean archipelago of Comoros with 150 people on board, a senior government official said on Tuesday.

"We don't know if there are any survivors among the 150 people on the plane," Comoros Vice-President Idi Nadhoim told Reuters from the airport at the main island's capital Moroni.

Nadhoim said the accident happened in the early hours of Tuesday, but could not give any more details.

The location was not immediately known, but a medical worker in the town of Mitsamiouli, on the main island Grande Comore, said he had been called into hospital.

"They have just called me to come to the hospital. They said a plane had crashed," he told Reuters.

The Comoros covers three small volcanic islands, Grande Comore, Anjouan and Moheli, in the Mozambique channel, 300 km (190 miles) northwest of Madagascar and a similar distance east of the African mainland.