At least 100 people were killed in a military plane crash in Algeria on Wednesday, local media reports confirmed.

Local news website TSA said 105 people had died, but said these were provisional figures from the civil aviation authority.

A statement from the defense ministry confirming the crash gave no casualty toll, TSA reported.

The cause of the crash was unclear and an investigation has been opened, the defence ministry said in the statement.

Emergency services converged on the area near the Boufarik military base after the crash.

“There are more than 100 deaths. We can’t say exactly how many at this point,” Mohammed Achour, the chief spokesman for the civil protection agency told the UK’s Guardian.

Achour also said the Russian-designed Il-76 military transport plane was carrying soldiers, the Guardian reported.

The flight had just taken off from Boufarik, about 30 kilometres south-west of Algiers, when it crashed. It was bound for a military base in Bechar in the south-west of the country, Achour said.

It was scheduled to make a stopover in Tindouf in southern Algeria, home to many refugees from the neighbouring Western Sahara, a disputed territory annexed by Morocco, reported the Guardian.