World

ATHENS — After jubilant celebrations by 'No' voters, Athens returned to a reality of ATM queues Monday and the shock news that the finance minister, the champion of the victorious anti-austerity camp, had quit.

Sunday's scenes of cheering outside parliament faded as fears spread that the country's banks could run dry within hours or days, forcing untold numbers of companies to go bust.

Those out for a coffee in the morning sunshine were worried that new efforts to strike a deal with the country's international creditors may not come in time to prevent Greece running out of cash — or the talks could fail entirely.

"I'm very afraid we will get no cash any more in the coming days. They really have to fix it, end of this week at the latest, otherwise it's collapsing," pharmacist Lambros Vritios said of the banking system.

Capital controls imposed by the government last week mean locals can only withdraw 60 euros ($67) a day, but even that restriction — aimed at averting financial disaster — has not stopped a run on money.

Vritios said he had been to several ATMs but found them empty. "It's really crushing me," he said.

Cash running short 

The banks are now reportedly almost depleted of cash after panicked customers rushed to hoard money in the lead-up to the referendum, which was called by Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras in a bid to break an impasse with the austerity-hungry creditors.

The Greek Banking Association said last week its members had just enough liquidity until Tuesday, when the government had promised the banks would reopen.

But Giorgos Stathakis, Greece's economy minister, told the BBC the capital controls could stay in place until Friday.

Greek banks were on the verge of collapse, he said, with its future in the euro being determined in the next 48 hours.

Greeks were divided over whether the European Central Bank would inject emergency euros into the country's banks — or whether the country's perceived nemesis, Germany, would make them suffer.

"The situation is very confusing. I really don't know what is going to happen," said Nikos, 47, who works in a luxury watch shop and fears the referendum result may be "misunderstood" by Europe as a vote to leave the eurozone.

"I don't think the banks will open tomorrow... we owe money to our suppliers and we can't pay them. As long as we have stocks, we can sell, but we cannot pay salaries," he said.

'He told the truth' 

The news that Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis's head had rolled to appease the country's international creditors was welcomed by some, who said his flamboyant and unorthodox ways had not helped bailout negotiations.

"Varoufakis is a revolutionary, someone very dynamic with a very important university background. But he is not a politician. He doesn't know how to negotiate," said Irene Roka.

"He had good ideas but he wasn't very diplomatic... he was very cavalier in negotiations," she said.

Sofia, 37, said she thought his exit "is going to help" reboot negotiations, despite a “Nein” from Germany which saw the bailout referendum as a nail in the coffin of debt talks.

"I think he's a bit arrogant. He should have been more balanced. I hope there is going to be an agreement that is the best for everybody," she said.

But Charalampos Aroutzidis, 30, said he was sorry because he liked Varoufakis. "He is not like the ones before him. He is different and he wanted the best for Greece."

Kiosk owner Miltiadis, 30, who was passing the time debating Greece's future with his customers, agreed: "I liked Varoufakis, he always told the truth."

"He told them we have no money left, and that's the way it is. Now that he's gone, probably they'll fix it — and kill us," he said with a bitter laugh, adding: "I'm very nervous regarding the eurozone summit tomorrow."

Tuesday's extraordinary summit in Brussels is expected to draw up the roadmap for Greece — but might see it driving the country off the eurozone cliff in a Greek exit, or 'Grexit'.

Doctor Elizabeth Drakopoulou, who works at one of the city's hospitals, said the bank closures were squeezing a population already ground down by five years of austerity.

"I don't think banks will open this week. It's very bad for the economy because nothing runs."

Her main concern, though, was the effect the capital controls were having on the elderly and vulnerable, with alarming shortages of vital medicines in some pharmacies.

ATHENS — Greeks voted overwhelmingly on Sunday to reject terms of a bailout, risking financial ruin in a show of defiance that could splinter Europe.

With nearly half of the votes counted, official figures showed 61 per cent of Greeks rejecting the bailout offer. An official interior ministry projection confirmed the figure as close to the expected final tally.

The astonishingly strong victory by the "no" camp overturned opinion polls that had predicted an outcome too close to call. It leaves Greece in uncharted waters: risking financial and political isolation within the eurozone and a banking collapse if creditors refuse further aid.

But for millions of Greeks the outcome was an angry message to creditors that Greece can longer accept repeated rounds of austerity that, in five years, had left one in four without a job. Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has denounced the price paid for aid as “blackmail” and a national “humiliation”.

Hundreds of Greeks began pouring into the central Syntagma square in front of parliament to celebrate, after a week of building desperation as banks were shut and cash withdrawals rationed to prevent a collapse of the Greek financial system.

“This is an imprint of the will of the Greek people and now it’s up to Europeans to show if they respect our opinion and want to help,” said Nikos Tarasis, a 23-year-old student.

Officials from the Greek government, which had argued that a “no” vote would strengthen its hand to secure a better deal from international creditors after months of wrangling, immediately said they would try to restart talks with European partners.

“I believe there is no Greek today who is not proud, because regardless of what he voted he showed that this country above all respects democracy,” Labour Minister Panos Skourletis said.

“The government now has a strong mandate, a strong negotiating card, to bring a deal which will open new ways.”

But euro zone officials shot down any prospect of a quick resumption of talks. One official said there were no plans for an emergency meeting of euro zone finance ministers on Monday, adding that the vote outcome meant the ministers “would not know what to discuss”.

Many of Athens’ partners have warned over the past week that a “no” vote would mean cutting bridges with Europe and driving Greece’s crippled financial system into outright bankruptcy, dramatically worsening the country’s economic depression.

The result also delivers a hammer blow to the European Union’s grand single currency project. Intended to be permanent and unbreakable when it was created 15 years ago, the euro zone could now be on the point of losing its first member with the risk of further unravelling to come.

“I believe such a result can be used as a strong negotiating tool so that Europeans can understand that we are not a colony,” said Nefeli Dimou, a 23-year-old student in Athens.

Greek banks, which have been closed all week and rationing withdrawals from cash machines, are expected to run out of money within days unless the European Central Bank provides an emergency lifeline. 

Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis is due to meet top Greek bankers later on Sunday and State Minister Nikos Pappas, one of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’s closest aides, said it was “absolutely necessary” to restore liquidity to the banking system now that the vote is over.

However the European Central Bank (ECB), which holds a conference call on Monday morning, may be reluctant to increase emergency lending to Greek banks, after voters rejected the spending cuts and economic reforms which creditors consider essential to make Greek public finances viable, central bankers said.

First indications were that any joint European political response may take a couple of days. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande will meet in Paris on Monday afternoon. The European Commission, the EU executive, meets in Strasbourg on Tuesday and will report to the European Parliament on the situation.

“EU leaders must get together immediately, even on Monday. The situation is too serious to leave to finance ministers,” said Axel Schaefer, a deputy head of the Social Democrat group in the German parliament.

“You have to have confidence in the ability of the ECB to act. We must use all the possibilities in the EU budget to help Greece, which is still a member of the euro and the EU.”

A “no” vote puts Greece and the euro zone in uncharted waters. Unable to borrow money on capital markets, Greece has one of the world’s highest levels of public debt. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned last week that it would need massive debt relief and 50 billion euros in fresh funds.

Greek officials see the IMF report as a vital support for their argument that the bailout terms as they stood would merely have driven Greece further into depression.

Tsipras called the referendum eight days ago after rejecting the tough terms offered by international creditors as the price for releasing billions of euros in bailout funds.

He denounced the bailout terms as an “ultimatum” and his argument that a “no” vote would allow the government to get a better deal appears to have convinced many Greeks, particularly among younger voters, who have been ravaged by unemployment levels of nearly 50 per cent.

“I have been jobless for nearly four years and was telling myself to be patient,” said 43-year-old Eleni Deligainni, who said she voted “no”. “But we’ve had enough deprivation and unemployment.”

Opinion polls over the months have shown a large majority of Greeks want to remain in the euro.

But, exhausted and angry after five years of cuts, falling living standards and rising taxes imposed under successive bailout programmes, many appear to have shrugged off the warnings of disaster, trusting that a deal can still be reached.

BEIJING/ISTANBUL — China has warned its citizens travelling in Turkey to be careful of anti-Beijing protests, saying some Chinese tourists have recently been "attacked and disturbed".

The notice, posted on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs website on Sunday, said there had been "multiple" demonstrations in Turkey targeting the Chinese government.

Relations between Turkey and China have been strained recently over the treatment of Muslim Uighur people in China's far western region of Xinjiang, who have reportedly had been banned from worship and fasting during the holy month of Ramadan.

China's treatment of the Uighurs is an important issue for many Turks, who see themselves as sharing a common cultural and religious background. Turkey vowed on Friday to keep its doors open to ethnic Uighurs fleeing persecution.

"Absolutely do not get close to or film the protests, and minimise to the greatest extent outside activities on one's own," the Chinese notice said.

Turkish daily Hurriyet reported a small group of people last week attacked a Chinese restaurant in Istanbul's touristy Tophane district, smashing windows.

On Sunday in Istanbul, several hundred protesters marched towards the Chinese consulate carrying flags and chanting anti-China slogans outside the building, located towards the end of a leafy uphill road from the coast of the Bosphorus strait.

Earlier in the day, some of the protesters had burned a Chinese flag.

"They [the Uighurs] are our brothers and are being persecuted for their faith. They did nothing wrong, their only fault is to be Muslim," said 17-year old Muhammet Gokce who was wearing a blue head band with the words "East Turkestan you are not alone".

"Turkey should embrace its brothers, should save them from the brutal hands of communist China." 

LONDON — Britain will pay silent homage on Tuesday to the 52 victims of the 2005 London bombings, with thoughts inevitably also turning to the 30 Britons killed in Tunisia last month in a horrific reminder of the Islamist threat.

In the 10 years between the two attacks, Britain has beefed up anti-terror legislation and stepped up its emergency preparedness, but the number of fighters travelling to join jihadists has multiplied.

The four suicide bombers of July 7, 2005, who killed 52 people, said they were inspired by Al Qaeda, while the Tunisian gun massacre of June 26 in which 38 tourists died was claimed by the Daesh terror group.

A wreath will be laid in front of a memorial in London's Hyde Park to the victims of the attacks on the city's transport system ahead of a religious service in St Paul's Cathedral to mark the tenth anniversary, with families of the victims and survivors expected to take part.

The country will observe a minute's silence at 1030 GMT after having made the same gesture on Friday in honour of its latest victims of terror.

The July 7 ringleader Mohammed Sidique Khan, a father-of-one whose parents were immigrants from Pakistan, was angry at British foreign policy in Iraq and said he wanted to avenge the deaths of fellow Muslims.

Khan's suicide video was widely broadcast and left a scar in the national consciousness, with many Britons shocked at hearing the jihadist slogans from the mouth of a young man with a recognisable hometown accent from his native Yorkshire.

John Tulloch, a British-Australian man who was on the train targeted by Khan, remembers the moments after the blast: "The darkness, smoke, glass everywhere." 

There were "horrifically wounded people right next to me, the dead young man spreadeagled at my feet", he told AFP.

The physical pain endures from the shrapnel lodged in his head but more painful still are the images that still form "a frightening tapestry of memory".

To overcome the trauma, Tulloch started writing about the attacks and the war on terror, and he learned to live with the idea of having narrowly escaped death.

'Snoopers' charter'

Once the initial shock of the attacks passed, London prepared to minimise the risks of a repeat attack.

July 7 "changed the whole landscape for UK counter-terrorism strategy", said Hugo Rosemont at the Centre for Defence Studies at King's College London.

The emphasis has been on countering radicalisation, but also improving the effectiveness of the emergency services, which were criticised for delays in 2005.

"We've learned a lot as London's emergency services," said Jason Killens, director of operations at the London Ambulance Service.

But the threat has evolved and jihadist attacks like the one in Tunisia risk inspiring copycat action in Western countries, said Rosemont.

"There is concern in the UK around obviously individuals who may be inspired to take such action off the back of actions or activities or indeed propaganda by ISIS [Daesh]," he said.

Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron's government passed a Counter Terrorism and Security Bill earlier this year that includes measures to disrupt travel plans of British jihadists.

It is also planning to strengthen its legislative arsenal with a new law that would force mobile phone operators and Internet providers to hand over data about their customers to the police.

But the law, dubbed a "Snoopers' Charter" by the press, risks sparking outrage from those concerned about the power of the secret services following revelations about the US National Security Agency.

Gus Hosein, executive director of Privacy International, said: "This is a government that needs to be restrained, not rewarded with unrestrained and greater reach into our lives."

BASEL — Eye care is one of the fastest-growing healthcare sectors, with more focus on responding to patients with “unmet needs”, according to medical experts, researchers and pharmacists.

With the growing world population and the increase of the ageing population, more attention should be given to eye care, especially diseases affecting people at a certain age, said experts convened at Novartis' “Innovating for Patients” media event in Basel, Switzerland recently.

Eye-related diseases and blindness, they said, are preventable with the right diagnosis and medication.

According to experts, out of the 39 million cases of blindness across the world, 51 per cent are caused by cataract, which can be treated by surgery. 

By 2030, this ratio will exceed 30 million.

“Cataract is a disease that will affect anyone eventually if not treated,” said Ahmet Tezel, head of IOL Franchise, research and development in Novartis, adding that “at least one in two people will develop cataract…It can’t be prevented.” 

As for glaucoma, it is referred to as the “silent thief of sight”, as many people have it but are unaware, and the cause of the disease remains unknown, with no cure for it.

Figures presented at the conference showed that there are 67 million people with glaucoma and 1.7 million live with presbyopia. They called for conducting extra research in this sector.

They also said up to one half of the more than 140 million contact lens wearers world wide experience some level of discomfort.

Globally, more than 285 million people live with vision impairment and blindness, according to Novartis.

During the conference, Novartis Pharmaceuticals launched an app for people with visual disabilities to use with the Apple Watch and other smart watches.

The hands-free nature of using ViaOpta app with wearable devices, such as Apple Watch and Android Wear, "provides users with an experience that seamlessly fits into their existing routines allowing those with visual impairments to navigate daily life with even ease", Novartis said in a statement. 

The app has been available on smartphones since 2014.

The company also announced that it is working in collaboration with Google and Alcon to “transform eye care”.

The products to be developed with Google will be like contact lenses that monitor glucose levels via “glucose sensing”.

The two-day conference also discussed developments and medications related to other diseases such as heart failure, psoriasis, spondyloarthritis, multiple sclerosis, lung cancer, and cell and gene therapy.

Discussions also tackled biomedical research and the latest advancements in the field.

NEW YORK — Millions of Americans on Saturday gathered for Independence Day parades, picnics and hotdog eating competitions, defying worries over possible security threats and the danger of wildfires in the West.

Rainy weather on the East Coast didn't dampen the spirits of celebrants decked out in red, white and blue from their headbands to their shoelaces for traditional July Fourth events from three-legged races to fireworks shows.

"It's important to show American spirit on America's birthday," said Meskie Hyman, 11, who wore a star-spangled shirt and a hairband with two American flags fluttering after she ran a holiday 50-yard dash under cloudy skies in Maplewood, New Jersey.

"I love that it's a free country and we have the right to speak. It lets us see everyone's potential and find our heroes," said Hyman, who listed her champions as singer Taylor Swift, founding father George Washington and her parents.

The Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have issued an alert asking local authorities and the public to remain vigilant for possible threats following recent calls for violence by Daesh leaders.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo ordered increased monitoring statewide for the holiday weekend under the direction of the New York Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services.

In New York City, the nation's biggest police force assigned about 7,000 officers and nearly all its counterterrorism personnel to handle security around Independence Day events.

In Coney Island, reigning champion Joey "Jaws" Chestnut sought to defend his title in the annual Nathan's Famous Fourth of July International Hot Dog-Eating Contest, where he set a world record in 2013 by gobbling 69 franks. Miki Sudo will seek to hang onto the women's title.

Steady rain pelting Washington, DC, may deter some of the hundreds of thousands of people expected to line the National Mall in Washington, DC, for a parade, concerts, wand a fireworks display that uses 6,500 shells.

Washington was shaken on Thursday by an unfounded report of gunshots at the Navy Yard military base that drew a heavy law enforcement response. Police chief Cathy Lanier told reporters police weren on heightened alert for the holiday.

On the US West Coast, which is already battling wildfires, communities in Washington state and Oregon restricted or banned fireworks for fear of more blazes. Cupertino, California, and Anchorage, Alaska's largest city, also cancelled firework shows.

Nine people suffered minor injuries at Avon, Colorado's "Salute to the USA" fireworks show on Friday night after a malfunction sent some of the spectacular explosives into the crowd rather than into the sky, town manager Virginia Egger said in a statement.

Revelers on the beaches of North Carolina were warned by the National Park Service to use extra caution after seven shark attacks were recorded in the state by midday Thursday, surpassing the previous high of four in 2014 according to the International Shark Attack File. That won't deter some from the surf, said shark file curator George Burgess.

Celebrations in Texas feature country music legend Willie Nelson, and in Oklahoma, a watermelon seed spitting contest.

Nelson's all-day picnic, held this year at the Circuit of the Americas racetrack outside Austin, typically draws tens of thousands of people for a day of drinking, music and frequently an illegal substance often associated with the Texas musician.

Meanwhile in Oklahoma, the "Watermelon Seed Spittin' World Championship" gets under way in Pauls Valley, about 100km southeast of Oklahoma City. The record spit to beat is 20.41 metres, set in 1989 by Jack Dietz.

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria — Boko Haram extremists gunned down nearly 100 Muslims praying in mosques in a northeast Nigerian town during the holy month of Ramadan, a government official and a self-defence fighter said Thursday.

The attack Wednesday night on the town of Kukawa came the day after the extremist group attacked a village 35 kilometres away and killed another 48 men and boys, according to witnesses who counted the dead.

The people of Kukawa were in several mosques, praying ahead of breaking their daylong fast, when the extremists attacked. They killed 97 people, mainly men, said self-defence spokesman Abbas Gava and a senior government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorised to give information to reporters.

Gava said his group's fighters in Kukawa said some militants also broke into people's homes, killing women and children as they prepared the evening meal.

Kukawa is 180 kilometres northeast of Maiduguri, the biggest city in northeast Nigeria and the birthplace of Boko Haram.

Nigeria's homegrown extremist group often defiles mosques where it believes clerics espouse too moderate a form of Islam. Wednesday's attack follows a directive from the Daesh terror group for fighters to increase attacks during Ramadan. Boko Haram this year became the Daesh’s West African franchise.

On Tuesday night, the extremists invaded the village of Mussaram, ordered men and women to separate and then opened fire on the men and boys, witnesses said.

"A total of 48 males died on the spot while 17 others escaped with serious injuries," said Maidugu Bida, a self-defence official, based in nearby Monguno who helped bury the dead.

On Monday, two suicide bombers blew themselves up prematurely in a village outside Maiduguri just an hour before the arrival of Nigeria's Vice President Yemi Osinbanjo. He visited some of the hundreds of thousands of people displaced by the 5-year-old Islamic uprising that has killed more than 13,000 people and driven 1.5 million from their homes.

Some of those killed in attacks in the past month had only just returned to rebuild towns and villages recaptured this year from Boko Haram by a multinational army.

MANILA — A ferry loaded with nearly 200 people capsized off a central Philippine port on Thursday, officials said, killing at least 38 people in the latest of the country's long string of maritime tragedies.

Up to 33 people are missing after the 33-tonne, wooden-hulled Kim Nirvana tipped over shortly after setting sail from Ormoc city at midday, the coast guard said.

Vegetable trader Reynante Manza, 45, cried as he recounted how the 33-tonne vessel suddenly rolled to one side as it reversed course shortly after backing out of the pier of Ormoc, pulling down his wife and many others under the water.

"It rolled while attempting to turn around swiftly. I am alive because I jumped overboard as soon as it happened," Manza told reporters.

Just a small section of the boat's underbelly, surrounded by rescue boats, was visible above water by late afternoon, according to an AFP photographer.

It bobbed above the waves a mere 200 metres from the shore, journalists on the scene said, much closer than the one-kilometre estimate made by local disaster officials earlier.

Rescuers pulled 118 survivors from the sea and continue to scour the deep waters where the accident happened, said Philippine National Red Cross chief Richard Gordon told AFP.

Gordon put the toll at 38 dead and 33 missing, citing the latest figures from rescuers on the scene.

"Some clung on to the hull of the overturned vessel, while some were rescued while swimming towards the shore," Ciriaco Tolibao, an official from the city's disaster risk reduction and management office, told AFP.

A distraught male survivor wept openly as crew members clad in blue brought him ashore, as others, looking shaken, recounted their ordeal to rescue officials.

A nearby row of soaked survivors squatted on the pier awaiting attention, while medical workers placed the injured onto stretchers and relatives of the missing screamed and cried nearby. 

The vessel was carrying 173 passengers and 16 crew members, and was licensed to carry up to 200 people, Tolibao said.

Many of the passengers were traders bringing farm produce and other merchandise to the Camotes island grouping, whose residents rely mostly on fishing, Tolibao added.

The authorities were puzzled how the accident had happened in relatively calm waters, after initial reports of choppy seas, and discounted speculation that it was overloaded.

"There wasn't any storm or any gale. We're trying to find out [why it happened]," Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Commander Armand Balilo told AFP.

He said the boat's outriggers apparently broke in the accident, and added it was possible the crew had committed a navigational error.

The Kim Nirvana was on its normal route to the islands, which sit about an hour's sail from Ormoc City.

Tolibao said at least 53 survivors were brought to the hospital while more than two-dozen others walked home.

Poorly maintained, loosely regulated ferries are the backbone of maritime travel in the sprawling archipelago. 

This has led to frequent accidents that have claimed hundreds of lives in recent years, including the world's worst peacetime maritime disaster in 1987 when the Dona Paz ferry collided with an oil tanker, leaving more than 4,300 dead.

Ormoc and the rest of Leyte Island was ravaged by Super Typhoon Haiyan which struck in November 2013, leaving more than 7,350 people dead or missing across the central Philippines.

A 1991 flash flood also killed around 6,000 people in Ormoc in one of the country's deadliest natural disasters.

The disaster-plagued Philippines is hit by about 20 typhoons and storms each year, many of them deadly.

MILAN, Italy — Italian police said on Wednesday they had arrested two people in Rome suspected of plotting attacks in Italy and North Africa, and five others in Italy and Albania who were planning to join the Daesh terror group.

Like other European countries, Italy has stepped up surveillance of individuals suspected of supporting militants in Syria and Iraq after indications that a number of Italians have travelled to the region to fight.

Italy has also been monitoring suspect militants tied to North Africa, and police said they seized two people on Wednesday, with a third person connected to the case already in jail for alleged terror offences committed in Morocco.

At a press conference during a visit to Berlin, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said the authorities had "destroyed an important cell" that was present in Italy but carrying out operations in North Africa.

In the other case, the five arrested in Italy and Albania were part of a group of 10 suspects comprising Italians, Albanians and one Canadian. The other five are believed to be in Syria, the police said.

Among them was an Italian woman, Maria Giulia Sergio, a Muslim convert who left Italy for Syria with her Albanian husband shortly after they married in 2014. The two are thought to have joined Daesh.

Police said on Wednesday they had arrested Sergio's parents and sister as well as a member of her husband's family.

They are all suspected of preparing to go and fight with Daesh, which controls large parts of Iraq and Syria.

A Canadian woman suspected of converting and radicalising the young newlywed and her family is also being sought by police.

Prosecutor Maurizio Romanelli told reporters there was no evidence the group was planning any attacks in Italy.

In March, Italian police arrested three men for allegedly setting up a network in Italy to recruit Islamist fighters to be sent abroad.

MEDAN, Indonesia — The number of people killed when an Indonesian air force plane crashed into a residential neighbourhood rose to 142 on Wednesday, as families said their relatives had paid to be on the aircraft, in violation of military rules.

Witnesses described scenes of horror when the Hercules C-130 transport plane crashed into the city of Medan and exploded in a fireball Tuesday, shortly after taking off from a nearby airbase. 

Buildings were severely damaged, cars reduced to flaming wrecks and the plane itself was almost completely destroyed, with the mangled tail the only part of the 51-year-old aircraft still recognisable after the disaster.

The recovery operation officially ended late Wednesday with all the parts of the plane cleared from the site, air force chief Agus Supriatna said. A small group of military personnel would remain in the area to check for more bodies, he added.

Many of those on board the flight, which was carrying 122 people, were believed to be servicemen and women and their families.

But the air force has repeatedly revised the number of people on the plane upwards — it initially indicated there were only 12 crew — raising questions whether paying civilian passengers had been allowed on board, leading to the plane becoming overloaded.

"We paid one million rupiah [$75] per person," said Janson Halomoan Sinaga, who lost five relatives who were heading to the remote Natuna Islands, adding they were "not a military family".

Some relatives of military family members also said they paid to travel on the flight. While the armed forces allows relatives of service members to hitch lifts on planes, any sort of payment is against the rules.

Supriatna denied the allegations of payments and vowed an investigation.

As more bodies were pulled from the rubble and taken to hospital, police put the total death toll at 142, indicating a growing number of fatalities on the ground. So far 62 victims, mostly military personnel, have been identified.

The plane, which had been due to travel to Bintan island off Singapore and on to the Natuna Islands after departing Medan, crashed into a massage parlour and hotel when it came down, and is thought to have destroyed several buildings in the area.

Tuesday's accident was the sixth deadly crash involving an Indonesian air force plane in the past decade, according to the Aviation Safety Network, and prompted Widodo to call for a "fundamental overhaul" of the military's ageing equipment.

Indonesia also has a poor civil aviation safety record — the latest disaster came just six months after an AirAsia plane crashed into the Java Sea, killing all 162 people on board.

It is not clear what caused Tuesday's crash but the aircraft asked to turn back just after take-off and the air force has said it may have suffered engine trouble.