UPDATE - Myanmar plane crash toll rises to 59 as search resumes

*UPDATES DEATH TOLL

By Kyaw Ye Lynn

YANGON, Myanmar (AA) – Myanmar has resumed search and rescue efforts on Sunday after an approaching storm Saturday temporarily halted the hunt for a military plane crashed off the country’s southern coast, official said.

Thirteen more bodies have been pulled from the Andaman Sea on Sunday -- the fifth day of search – as navy vessels and local fishing trawlers fight fierce monsoon weather to continue the search and rescue operation, the office of the military chief said in a statement.

That brings the total number of fatalities to 59, it said.

Twenty-seven men, 23 women, and nine children were among the bodies founded in the Andaman Sea, about 550 kilometers south of the country’s largest city Yangon.

The Chinese-made Y8-200F aircraft was carrying 122 people, including 15 children, when it went missing on Wednesday evening during a flight from the southern town of Myeik to Yangon.

Authorities later confirmed that the plane crashed into the sea after bodies and debris from the missing plane were found on Thursday.

China offered help and support on Saturday for Myanmar’s hunt for the plane, in service since March 2016, as Myanmar begun probing the accident in cooperation with officials from the Chinese aircraft manufacturer.

Gen. Aung Ye Win, a spokesperson for the Myanmar military, told reporters that the military is determined to continue the search, but admitted chances of finding survivors are fading due to bad weather.

During a fundraising ceremony for the victims' families in capital Nay Pyi Taw on Saturday, Army chief Senior Gen Min Aung Hlaing called the accident the worst air disaster in the country’s military history.

Eight military personnel were killed in two separate training aircraft accidents last year.

According to a local media report, Myanmar has had 17 aircraft accidents since 1998, most of them involving small passenger aircraft.