BUDAPEST, Jan. 19 (Xinhuanet) - One person survived the crash of a Slovak military transport plane near Telkibanya in northeast Hungary on Thursday evening, Hungarian Minister of Economy and Transport Janos Koka told Hungarian Television.

    Local media reported that a survivor of the crash made a phone call to his wife just after the An-24 went down, asking her to alert the Slovak air force and police immediately.

    He said the plane had crashed a few minutes before and that he had just regained consciousness. He said the plane had crashed in a densely forested area but then the line was cut off.

    The caller may be the same person as the survivor who has been taken to a hospital in Kosice with skull injuries.

    The aircraft carried altogether 45 people, emergency management authority spokesman Tibor Dobson said.

    Sixteen bodies have now been found at the scene of the crash, Dobson said.

    Shortly before midnight parts of the wreck were still on fire, with corpses lying around, said local media.

    Hungary's Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany telephoned his Slovak counterpart, Mikulas Dzurinda, and they agreed to keep in touch throughout the night and exchange information concerning the rescue operation.

    The aircraft was en route from Pristina, the capital of Serbia's Kosovo province, to the Slovak town of Kosice, some 350 km east of Bratislava, when it caught fire and crashed into a hill densely covered with forests, 10 km from the Slovak border.

    The rescue operation is still underway. Enditem