Twelve people have died and 49 suffered injuries as a result of the crash of a Bek Air flight near Almaty, Kazakhstan, on Friday morning, the Kazakh Interior Ministry's Emergency Situations Committee said in a statement.

Fifteen fatalities were reported earlier.

"Twelve people died and 49 were hurt as a result of the incident. They have been identified," the statement said.

The crash killed plane captain Marat Muratbayev and Kazakh journalist Dana Kruglova. The plane had 93 passengers and five crewmembers on board.

"The plane was carrying five crewmembers and 93 passengers, including foreign citizens: two of Ukraine, one of Kyrgyzstan, and one of China. The others were citizens of Kazakhstan," the statement said.

The Fokker 100 plane of the Kazakh airline Bek Air traveling from Almaty to Nur-Sultan began to lose altitude soon after taking off, hit a concrete fence and a two-story building, and crashed in a residential area.