Over 30 people have been seriously injured after a plane made an emergency landing in Australia.

The Qantas A330-300 was carrying 303 passengers from Singapore to Perth, Australia, when it was forced to land on Australia's northwest coast after experiencing severe turbulence.

Some of the injured passengers received broken bones and lacerations and were taken to hospital at Exmouth, while the remaining passengers were housed at the airport awaiting pick up by another Qantas aircraft.

The Australian Air Transport Safety Bureau said in a statement: "While cruising in level flight, the aircraft experienced a sudden in-flight upset, resulting in injuries to a number of cabin crew and passengers, primarily in the rear of the aircraft."

"The crew declared a mayday and diverted the aircraft to Learmonth, near Exmouth ... where it landed without further incident," it said.

Qantas has been hit by a spate of incidents recently.

In one, Australian air safety investigators blamed an oxygen bottle for a mid-air explosion which blew a minivan-size hole in the side of Qantas 747 last month.

The plane suffered a sudden loss of cabin pressure during a flight from Hong Kong to Melbourne on July 25, forcing the aircraft to make an emergency descent before diverting to the Philippines, where it landed safely in Manila.

The pilot landed the plane manually, with help from air traffic controllers in Manila, where all 346 passengers and 19 crew disembarked safely.

© Independent Television News Limited 2008. All rights reserved.