Three staff died and four others were injured after a Zimbabwean cargo plane caught fire and crashed at the Shanghai Pudong airport Saturday, local officials said.

The accident occurred at 8:12 a.m., when the plane veered off the runway as it took off, they said.

"Black and heavy smoke! About 50 meters high. It rose to the sky all of a sudden," said a taxi driver surnamed Li, who was passing by the airport and took video of the crash with his cell phone.

All the seven foreign staff were rushed to the People's Hospital of Pudong New Area, where three of them died and the other four injured men were in stable condition.

Rescue efforts ended at about 4 p.m. with the fire engines leaving the scene. The scene of the accident was still cordoned off by police Saturday evening.

A 61-year-old American man was seriously injured with bone fractures in the chest and lung as well as pneumothorax.

"If there is no complication, he is expected to be out of danger within 48 to 72 hours," said Sun Wanju, deputy head of the hospital.

The other three injured men were from Indonesia, Belgium and Zimbabwe. They had bone fractures and contusions, according to the hospital.

Officials from the Shanghai municipal and Pudong New Area governments paid a visit Saturday noon to the survivors.

The Civil Aviation Administration of China has sent staff to the airport for investigation.

The MD-11 plane belonged to the Avient Aviation, a freight charter airline based in Zimbabwe. It was scheduled to fly from Shanghai to the Bishkek Manas International Airport in Kyrgyzstan.

It destroyed some lighting facilities on the ground, said Jia Ruijun, general manager of the Shanghai Pudong Airport Limited Company.

The No.1 and No. 3 runways were shut down soon after the accident, but the latter was reopened at 11:00 a.m. after a safety check, Jia said.

Affected by the accident, 68 flights were delayed. By 3:00 p.m.,the operation of the airport had basically come back to normal, he said.

The cause of the accident is still under investigation.

Ten years ago, another MD-11 of the Korean Air crashed at the Shanghai Hongqiao Airport shortly after its take-off.