Updated, 13.38

A MOROCCAN military transport plane crashed in a mountainous southern region today, the country’s information minister has said, killing 78.

Minister Khaled Naciri confirmed to the Associated Press that the plane crashed near the city of Guelmim.

“There are people dead,” Naciri said by telephone, but he would not give a death toll or other information, saying the government was trying to pin down details.

An army spokesman later told Reuters that 78 people had been killed, with another three seriously injured.

The Goud news website said 26 people were killed and four wounded in the crash of the Royal Armed Forces C-130 aircraft. It said 70 people were aboard. The website cited unnamed local sources, and its information could not immediately be confirmed.

Moroccan military officials and officials at the military hospital in Guelmim could not be reached.

Guelmim is more than 600km southwest of the capital Rabat, just north of the disputed Western Sahara territory and close to the Atlantic coast.

- AP