Unbearable anguish: Dabu Patni, mourning as she waits for the body of her younger brother Akash Patni, 14, who died after the Air India crash in Ahmedabad. — Reuters
Mourners covered white coffins with flowers in India as funerals were held for some of the at least 279 people killed in one of the world’s worst plane crashes in decades.
Health officials have begun handing over the first passenger bodies identified through DNA testing, delivering them to grieving relatives in the western city of Ahmedabad, but the wait went on for most families.
“They said it would take 48 hours. But it’s been four days and we haven’t received any response,” said Rinal Christian, 23, whose elder brother was a passenger on the jetliner.
There was one survivor out of 242 passengers and crew on board the London-bound Air India jet when it crashed last Thursday into a residential area of Ahmedabad, killing at least 38 people on the ground as well.
“My brother was the sole breadwinner of the family,” Christian said. “So what happens next?”
At a crematorium in the city, around 20 to 30 mourners chanted prayers in a funeral ceremony for Megha Mehta, a passenger who had been working in London.
As of Sunday evening, 47 crash victims had been identified, according to Rajnish Patel, a doctor at Ahmedabad’s civil hospital.
“This is a meticulous and slow process, so it has to be done meticulously only,” Patel said.
Final journey: Policemen carrying the coffin of former Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani, who died in the plane crash. — AP.
One victim’s relative, who did not want to be named, told AFP they had been instructed not to open the coffin when they receive it.
Witnesses reported seeing badly burnt bodies and scattered remains.
Workers went on clearing debris from the site on Sunday, while police inspected the area.
The Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner erupted into a fireball when it went down moments after takeoff, smashing into buildings used by medical staff.
The majority of those injured on the ground have been discharged, Patel said, with one or two remaining in critical care.
The intensity of the flames from the crash has made the identification of passenger remains a mammoth task, medical officials in India said on Sunday.
The Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner was carrying 125,000 litres of fuel when it crashed on June 12, a full load for a nearly 10-hour flight from Ahmedabad to Gatwick Airport near London.
Senior health officials in Ahmedabad told a visiting delegation on June 14 that initial findings indicated that temperatures at the crash site reached 1,500°C, according to two people who attended the briefing. Such temperatures are more than enough to incinerate bodies.
HP Sanghvi, director of the forensic lab where most of the DNA samples are being sent, told the Indian news media that the damage to the bodies made collection and testing difficult.
“These high temperatures affect the DNA present in various parts of the body,” he noted. “This process is very complex.”
Indian authorities have yet to identify the cause of the disaster and have ordered inspections of Air India’s Dreamliners.
Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu Kinjarapu said Saturday he hoped decoding the first black box, the flight data recorder, would “give an in-depth insight” into the circumstances of the crash. — Agencies
