The death toll for Americans killed when a plane crashed in Nigeria Sunday has risen to nine from seven, the U.S. State Department said Wednesday.

The Dana Air plane that crashed in Lagos, killing all 153 people on board, is Nigeria's worst airline disaster in two decades.

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After Nigeria plane crash, families mourn; government suspends airline

The McDonnell Douglas MD-83, operated by privately owned domestic airline Dana Air, smashed into an apartment block in a densely populated suburb on Sunday afternoon, killing everyone on board and probably six people on the ground.

"From the record of communication that we have, the captain of the aircraft called the traffic control in Lagos declaring a mayday and reported dual engine failure," Aviation Minister Stella Oduah told journalists at the presidential villa. "It was shortly after the captain's distress call that the aircraft could no longer be seen in the radar and communication was lost."

The government has set up panels to review the safety of all airlines in the country and suspended Dana Air's air license.

Dana Air has said there was nothing wrong with the aircraft.

Engine problems eyed after passenger jet crashes in Nigeria suburb

"Dana Air takes safety very seriously and our aircraft are sound," Dana Director Francis Ogboro told a news conference, repeating the company's position that there was no mechanical fault with the plane before it went down.

Workers have finished recovering bodies from the rubble, Lagos state attorney general Ade Ipaye said. In total, 149 bodies and a number of body parts were found. Around two-thirds of the remains could not be identified and were to undergo identification at a forensics laboratory.

Reuters and NBC News contributed to this report.

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LAGOS, Nigeria -- A commercial airliner crashed into a densely populated neighborhood in Nigeria's largest city on Sunday, killing all 153 people on board and others on the ground in the worst air disaster in nearly two decades for the troubled nation.

Rescue officials said they fear many more people may have perished on the ground. The airline involved said an investigation had begun into the cause of Sunday's crash.

A Nigeria Red Cross report said 110 bodies had been recovered, with more being dug out from the rubble. A U.S. official said American citizens had been aboard the flight.

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The pilots reported engine trouble before the plane fell out of the sky on a clear afternoon, smashing into businesses and crowded apartment buildings near Lagos' Murtala Muhammed International Airport. The flight was bound for Lagos, Nigeria's commercial center, from Abuja, the capital. Two years ago, the same MD-83 lost engine power due to a bird strike, according to an aviation database.

"The fear is that since it happened in a residential area, there may have been many people killed," said Yushau Shuaib, a spokesman for Nigeria's National Emergency Management Agency.

PhotoBlog: Smoldering scene in Lagos, Nigeria after plane crash

The cause of the Dana Air crash remained unknown Sunday night, as firefighters and police struggled to put out the flames around the wreckage of the Boeing MD83 aircraft. Authorities could not control the crowd of thousands gathered around to see the crash site, with some crawling over the plane's broken wings and standing on a still-smoldering landing gear.

Harold Demuren, the director-general of Nigeria's Civil Aviation Authority, said all on board the flight were killed in the crash. Lagos state government said in a statement that 153 people were on the flight traveling from Nigeria's central capital of Abuja to Lagos in the nation's southwest.

The flight's pilots radioed to the Lagos control tower just before the crash, saying the plane had engine trouble, a military official said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak to journalists.

Rescue officials feared many others were killed or injured on the ground, but no casualty figures were immediately available. Firefighters and local residents were seen carrying the corpse of a man from one building, its walls still crumbling and flames shooting from its roof more than an hour after the crash. 

President Goodluck Jonathan later declared three days of national mourning in Africa's most populous nation.

The aircraft appeared to have landed on its belly into the dense neighborhood that sits along the typical approach path taken by aircraft heading into Lagos' Murtala Muhammed International Airport. The plane tore through roofs, sheared a mango tree and rammed into a woodworking studio, a printing press and at least two large apartment buildings in the neighborhood before stopping.

'Huge explosion'
Most people in Lagos' Agege suburb -- where the crash occurred --  live in tin-roofed buildings along unpaved streets.

"We heard a huge explosion, and at first we thought it was a gas canister," said Timothy Akinyela, 50, a local newspaper reporter who was watching a soccer match on TV with friends in a nearby bar.

A white, noxious cloud rose from the crash site that burned onlookers' eyes, as pieces of the plane lay scattered around the muddy ground.

While local residents helped carry fire hoses to the crash site, the major challenges of life in oil-rich Nigeria quickly became apparent as there wasn't any water to put out the flames more than three hours later. Some young men carried plastic buckets of water to the fire, trying to douse small portions. Fire trucks, from the very few that are stationed in Lagos state with a population of 17.5 million, couldn't carry enough water. Officials commandeered water trucks from nearby construction sites, but they became stuck on the narrow, crowded roads, unable to reach the crash site.

The dead included at least four Chinese citizens, the official Chinese news agency Xinhua reported late Sunday, citing Chinese diplomats in Nigeria. Officials at the Chinese embassy in Nigeria could not be reached for comment by the AP.

The spokesman for the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation, Levi Ajuonuma, was also among the dead, according to a passenger list released by the airline. Ajuonuma was also de facto spokesman for the oil minister in OPEC member Nigeria, Africa's biggest crude producer.

Endemic corruption
Nigeria, home to more than 160 million people, suffers from endemic government corruption and mismanagement. The nation also has a history of major aviation disasters, though in recent years there hasn't been a crash. In August 2010, the U.S. announced it had given Nigeria the Federal Aviation Administration's Category 1 status, its top safety rating that allows the West African nation's domestic carriers to fly directly to the U.S.

But many travelers remain leery of some airlines. On Saturday night, a Nigerian Boeing 727 cargo airliner crashed in Accra, the capital of Ghana, slamming into a bus and killing 10 people. The plane belonged to Lagos-based Allied Air Cargo.

Officials with Lagos-based Dana Air did not respond to calls for comment Sunday night. The airline has five aircraft in its fleet and runs both regional and domestic flights. Local media reported a similar Dana flight in May made an emergency landing at the Lagos airport after having a hydraulic problem.

Nigeria has tried to redeem its aviation image in recent years, saying it now has full radar coverage of the entire country. However, in a nation where the state-run electricity company is in tatters, the power grid and diesel generators sometimes both fail at airports, making radar screens go blank.

Sunday's crash appeared to be the worst since September 1992, when a military transport plane crashed into a swamp shortly after takeoff from Lagos. All 163 army soldiers, relatives and crew members on board were killed.

'Oh God, we lost him'
The crash also comes as Nigeria, which became a democracy in 1999 after years of military rule, faces increasing sectarian bloodshed across its largely Muslim north from a radical Islamist sect known as Boko Haram. Earlier Sunday, a suicide car bomber killed at least 15 people and wounded dozens of others.

As night began to fall Sunday, more and more worried relatives of passengers arrived in the neighborhood, pushing their way down the crowded, narrow streets to make it to the crash site. One man stopped to ask about the crash, whether any passengers walked away alive.

His eyes grew wide when he heard no one escaped alive, his hand rising to his mouth. His brother was onboard.

"Oh God, we lost him," the man whispered, before slowly walking away.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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LAGOS, Nigeria -- Soldiers have barricaded key roads in Nigeria's commercial capital of Lagos as the president offered a concession to halt fuel price protests that he said were being stoked by provocateurs seeking anarchy.

Troops and police also blocked entrances to protest venues in Nigeria's second-largest city of Kano on Monday, including a park near a university and a square in the city center.

 

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The deployment of troops is a sensitive issue in a nation with a young democracy and a history of military coups. President Goodluck Jonathan said in his televised speech early Monday that agitators have hijacked the demonstrations.

Jonathan announced the government would subsidize gasoline prices to immediately reduce the price to about $2.27 a gallon. The concession might not be enough to stem outrage over the government's stripping of fuel subsidies on Jan. 1 that kept gas prices low in this oil-rich but impoverished nation. Even with the measure announced Monday, gasoline would still be more than a dollar higher than it was just 16 days ago, and anger in Africa's most populous nation is also now aimed at government corruption and inefficiency.

Tens of thousands have marched in cities across the nation of more than 160 million people, while a strike by Nigeria's biggest union began Jan. 9, paralyzing the country.

Reuters reported that the protests have "become an outlet for thousands to vent their grievances against what they see as a venal ruling political class and incompetent government, which is struggling to tackle an insurgency by the Boko Haram Islamist sect based in the largely Muslim north."

Remi Sonaiya, a student, told Reuters: "The bottom line is we don't trust the government to do what they say anymore."

Strike suspended
Unions on Monday suspended their strike following the government's concessions, but it was not immediately clear if wider anger would be calmed by the measure.

• PHOTOBLOG: Nigeria protests grow

In Lagos, a city of 15 million, army soldiers set up a checkpoint Monday morning on the main highway that feeds traffic from the mainland into its islands.

An Associated Press reporter saw more than a dozen Nigerian air force personnel, who were carrying assault rifles and wearing green fatigue uniforms, questioning occupants of cars at a roundabout where more 1,000 protesters had regularly gathered last week. Drivers had to slow down because the airmen had put metal barricades and debris in the street. They asked the drivers to identify themselves and say where they were going.

At a park in Lagos' Ojota neighborhood on the mainland, where more than 20,000 people had gathered Friday for an anti-government demonstration, two military armored personnel carriers were parked near an empty stage. About 50 soldiers and 50 other security personnel surrounded the area carrying Kalashnikov rifles, waving away those who tried to enter to resume demonstrations. A crowd of several hundred people gathered a few hundreds yards away.

"They are here because they don't want us to protest," said Remi Odutayo, 25, referring to the soldiers in the park. "They are using the power given to them to do something illegal" by stopping demonstrators from gathering.

• STORY: Social media widen scope of Nigeria protests

Jonathan's speech Monday came after his attempt to negotiate with labor unions failed late Sunday night to avert nationwide strikes entering a sixth day. Nigeria Labor Congress President Abdulwaheed Omar said early Monday morning he had ordered workers to stay at home overnight, but that might not keep people away from mass demonstrations.

A report on Nigerian news website This Day said the president told his audience: "There was near-breakdown of law and order in certain parts of the country as a result of the activities of some persons or groups of persons who took advantage of the situation to further their narrow interests by engaging in acts of intimidation, harassment and outright subversion of the Nigerian state. I express my sympathy to those who were adversely affected by the protests."

Jonathan's government abandoned subsidies that kept gasoline prices low on Jan. 1, causing prices to spike from $1.70 per gallon (45 cents per liter) to at least $3.50 per gallon (94 cents per liter). The costs of food and transportation also largely doubled in a nation where most people live on less than $2 a day.

Reuters and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

Nigeria's main oil union said Thursday it would try to shut down the country's oil and gas production from Sunday, as part of a crippling national strike over spiraling fuel prices.

The strike began Monday after the Nigerian government reversed a two-decade-long subsidy program that had kept gas prices low for Nigerian consumers.

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Anger over the government's decision has led to demonstrations across Africa's most populous nation, and related violence has left at least 10 people dead.

 

A statement Thursday by the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) said that if the government does not restore the subsidies, the union would have to act.

"We are hereby notifying the Federal Government of Nigeria ... that [we] shall be forced to go ahead and apply the bitter option of ordering the systematic shutting down of oil and gas production with effect from ... 0000 hours of Sunday Jan 15,'' the union said in a statement.

• PHOTOBLOG: Nigerians protest fuel price rises

Protesters say they want a permanent change in Nigeria, a move away from leaders who send their families abroad for schooling and medical checkups while the rest subsist on less than $2 a day.

"They want to cut us off," said Anthony Abang, a 32-year-old unemployed man who helped close down a Lagos highway. "They want to kill our future."

Gas prices doubled overnight
President Goodluck Jonathan removed subsidies on Jan. 1 that had kept gasoline prices low for more than two decades. Overnight, prices at the pump more than doubled, from $1.70 per gallon to at least $3.50 per gallon. The costs of food and transportation also doubled.

Jonathan insists the move was necessary to save the country an estimated $8 billion a year, which he promises will go toward badly needed road and public projects.

But Nigerians marching through the streets in all parts of the country have seen government promises go unfulfilled before, while politicians got richer by stealing funds from planned public work projects. Many Nigerians don't even have electricity and clean drinking water.

That anger has seen some protesters confront police, set burning roadblocks and attack government offices. At least 10 people have been killed.

On Wednesday in Minna, the capital of the central Niger state, youths attacked the governor's house, forcing him to flee by helicopter. A mob also killed a police officer.

Oil prices rose above $102 a barrel on Thursday following concerns about the strike in Nigeria.

However, even if Nigerian production is slowed, oil in inventories could continue to supply foreign markets for a time.

"A complete shutdown, if carried out, is likely to have a rather large detrimental effect on Nigerian output, even though exports could continue from their inventories in the short term," financial institution Barclays Capital recently said.

Nigeria is a top supplier of crude to the U.S., producing about 2.4 million barrels a day from the swamps of its southern delta to massive offshore oil fields. Oil accounts for up to 80 percent of revenues in Nigeria, a nation of more than 160 million people.

The president insists the removing the subsidy was necessary to save the country an estimated $8 billion a year -- money which he promises will go toward badly needed road and public projects.

• PHOTOBLOG: Nigeria protests grow, 13 killed in attacks

However, protesters distrust the government, and say it should first cut corruption in a nation where military rulers and politicians have stolen billions of dollars.

In Lagos, Nigeria's commercial capital of 15 million, several hundred protesters on Wednesday took over a major highway leading to the islands where the wealthy live. One protester carried a signed that read: "We are ready for the civil war."

Fears about violence were heightened as the leader of a radical Islamist sect challenged the authority of Nigeria's president in an online video. The video by Imam Abubakar Shekau, the leader of the sect known as Boko Haram, will aggravate religious and ethnic tensions in this nation of more than 160 million.

Attorney General Mohammed Bello Adoke has warned that the government "will not hesitate to bring to bear the full weight of the law" against violent protesters. He also said the strike by major labor unions violates a court injuction.

"Adoke also told public workers the government will implement a "no work, no pay" policy for those who join the strike. However, public workers already go weeks without pay in Nigeria at times because of corruption and mismanagement.

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Reuters, the Associated Press and msnbc.com staff contributed to this report.