China's government says one of the two black box recorders has been retrieved from a Chinese passenger jet that crashed with 132 people on board on Monday.

China Eastern Airlines Flight 5735 crashed in a mountainous area in Wuzhou City in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. No survivors have been found.

The plane was heading to Guangzhou in the southern province of Guangdong after taking off from Kunming in the inland province of Yunnan.

The government told reporters on Wednesday that the recovered device is so damaged that it is hard for investigators to tell whether it is the flight data recorder or the cockpit voice recorder.

It also said weather along the flight path was normal at the time of the crash, and the pilots and air controllers had maintained communication until the plane began its rapid descent.

The Chinese government says it will analyze quickly the black box recorder to identify the causes of the crash and continue to search for the other device.