LIMA, Aug. 23 (Xinhuanet) -- Between 70 and 80 people were killed Tuesday after a Peruvian 737-200 jet crashed near the Amazon city of Pucallpa, Peruvian President Alejandro Toled was quoted as saying.

    "There were between 20 and 30 survivors," on the jet which was on a flight between the capital Lima and Pucallpa, Toledo said.

Unidentified relatives of victims of a downed Peruvian airliner arrive at Jorge Chavez airport in Lima, Peru Aug. 23.  (AP)

    The plane was carrying 93 passengers and seven crew when it went down in a storm. A spokesman for the state-run airline TANS said the Boeing 737-200 plane, which had a capacity of 120 passengers, made an emergency landing without its landing gear in the jungle town of Pucallpa, 785 kilometers northeast of Lima.

    Peru's Transport Minister, Jose Ortiz, said 93 passengers were on board the plane. TANS declined to comment.

    "The plane made an emergency landing but without its landing gear," said a firefighter. "The weather was really terrible, there was a fierce storm at the time," said a police officer in Pucallpa. 

    TANS, founded in the 1960s by the Peruvian air force to help serve remote jungle communities, started up as a commercial airline in 1998. It has around 30 percent of the local market. Enditem