Rescue workers in Colombia began clearing bodies from the wreckage of a plane crash on Tuesday after a chartered plane carrying a Brazilian soccer team crashed into a hillside near La Union on Monday night.

Scenes from the site showed wreckage strewn across a mountain area. The plane's fuselage appeared to have broken into two upon hitting the mountain top, with the nose facing downward into a steep valley. Rescuers working through the night were initially heartened after pulling three passengers alive from the wreckage.

But as the hours passed, heavy rainfall and low visibility grounded helicopters and slowed efforts to reach the crash site. At daybreak, dozens of bodies scattered across a muddy mountainside were collected into white bags.

They were then loaded onto several Black Hawk helicopters that had to perform a tricky maneuver to land on the crest of the Andes mountains. Authorities said the bodies would be taken to the nearby city of Medellin, where a vigil was scheduled to be held come nightfall.

The aircraft, which had departed from Santa Cruz, Bolivia, was carrying the Chapecoense soccer team from southern Brazil for Wednesday's first leg of a two-game Copa Sudamericana final against Atletico Nacional of Medellin.

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