April 15, 2008—Onlookers and rescue workers sift through the smoldering wreckage of a passenger jet that crashed into a crowded marketplace in Goma, Democratic Republic of the Congo, on Tuesday.

The aircraft, carrying 79 passengers on Congo's Hewa Bora Airways, plummeted into the densely packed Goma neighborhood as it struggled to take off, witnesses reported.

More than a hundred people were injured and at least 30 killed, according to the latest estimates.

Michael Davie, a freelance television correspondent, was on assignment in Goma for National Geographic when the crash occurred.

"When I arrived, there were somewhere between 10,000 and 15,000 people who had surrounded the wreckage, many of whom were trying to determine who had been killed and who had survived," Davie said by telephone.

With emergency services all but nonexistent in the developing nation, members of an Indian-led UN peacekeeping force (in foreground, with blue headgear) went to the scene to help, Davie said.

"[People] were trying to put out the flames, trying to prevent the fire from the fuselage from spreading into the market area surrounding the wreckage."

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