Pakistan plane crash bodies arrive in Karachi

Emergency teams battled heavy rains and mud on Thursday to recover bodies strewn over hills overlooking the Pakistani capital following the country's worst-ever plane crash.

The Airbus A321 operated by local carrier Airblue crashed into hills near the country's capital, Islamabad, during stormy, monsoon weather, killing all 152 people on board.

Wreckage was strewn over about a third of a square mile section of the forested slopes.

The civil aviation authority said the plane had been ordered to take an alternative approach to the runway, but had veered off course.

Army troops and civilian rescue workers searched a large stretch of the hills scorched by the crash, but the tough conditions slowed the pace of operations.

Elsewhere, dozens of relatives and friends of those killed, slept outside Islamabad's largest hospital overnight, hoping to receive bodies.