KARACHI, Pakistan (AFP) — A total of 80 bodies have been recovered after a Pakistani plane crashed with nearly 100 people on board in the southern city of Karachi on Friday, Provincial health officials said in a statement, with more feared dead.

The Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) plane had made multiple approaches to land at the city’s airport when it came down among houses, devastating buildings and killing several people on the ground.

The official statement confirmed two survivors and said that 17 of the bodies had been “identified so far”.

Earlier the airline’s chief executive Arshad Mahmood Malik said in a press conference that only one survivor had been confirmed from the wreckage — the president of the Bank of Punjab, Zafar Masud.

He added that the full clearance operation could last two to three days.

Efforts on the ground will be ongoing “until we get all the bodies recovered,” a provincial official who asked not to be named told AFP. “So far 80 bodies have been recovered from the debris.”

Plumes of smoke were sent into the air as rescue workers and residents searched the debris for people and as firefighters tried to extinguish the flames. An AFP reporter witnessed charred bodies being loaded into ambulances.

Sarfraz Ahmed, a firefighter at the crash site, told AFP the nose of the Airbus A320 and the fuselage had been heavily damaged by the impact, adding that rescuers had pulled bodies from the aircraft who were still wearing seatbelts.

The disaster comes as Pakistanis across the country are preparing to celebrate the end of Ramadan and the beginning of Eid al-Fitr, with many travelling back to their homes in cities and villages.

PIA confirmed there were 91 passengers and seven crew on board the flight, which lost contact with air traffic control just after 2:30 pm (0930 GMT) travelling from Lahore to Karachi.

The pilot, Sajjad Gull, who according to an official release was the senior most A320 pilot with extensive flight experience, complained of a problem after making his second approach to the runway, before air traffic control lost contact with him.

PIA promised a full independent investigation.

Airbus later said in a statement that the plane had first entered service in 2004 and was acquired by PIA a decade later and had logged around 47,100 flight hours.

The plane had developed a technical fault, according to interior minister Ijaz Ahmad Shah who said the pilot issued a mayday call after the craft lost an engine.