Tin islands hit hard by crash

Gone but not forgotten: A PT Timah employee putting flowers at the desk of her colleague, a passenger of Lion Air flight JT610, in Pangkal Pinang. — Reuters

PANGKAL PINANG: As Indonesia struggles to determine why an airliner crashed this week with the loss of all 189 people on board, there is nowhere the impact of its second-worst air disaster has been felt as deeply as the sleepy, palm-fringed Bangka-Belitung islands.

Lion Air flight JT610, an almost new Boeing 737 MAX 8, was en route from Jakarta to Pangkal Pinang, centre of the Bangka-Belitung tin-mining region, on Monday when it crashed into the sea soon after take-off.