13 dead in Mexico plane crash near earthquake epicentre

As many as 13 persons have been killed after a helicopter carrying officials, assessing the damage caused by a powerful earthquake, crashed in southern Mexico.

Mexican state Oaxaca's attorney general's office said that 12 people were killed at the scene and one died later in a hospital, Sky News reported.

Mexico's interior department said the helicopter was carrying the interior minister, Alfonso Navarrete, and the Oaxaca state governor, Alejandro Murat. Neither suffered serious injuries in the crash.

According to Navarrete the aircraft's pilot lost control as it was coming to land.

Several media reports quoted officials as saying that the helicopter had crashed on top of two vans in a field while trying to land not far from the epicentre, near the town of Pinotepa de Don Luis.

An earthquake measuring 7.2 magnitudes on the Richter scale struck south and central Mexico on Friday evening.

The quake's epicentre was 33 miles northeast of Pinotepa, in Oaxaca State.

No deaths have been reported in the earthquake itself so far.