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.
There was one survivor out of 242 passengers and crew on board the London-bound Air India jet when it crashed Thursday into a residential area of Ahmedabad, killing at least 38 people on the ground as well.
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.
“This is a meticulous and slow process, so it has to be done meticulously only,“ Patel said.
Witnesses reported seeing badly burnt bodies and scattered remains.
The Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner erupted into a fireball when it went down moments after takeoff, smashing into buildings used by medical staff.
'We need to know'
Authorities announced Sunday that the second black box, the cockpit voice recorder, had been recovered. This may offer investigators more clues about what went wrong.
Imtiyaz Ali, who was still waiting for a DNA match to find his brother, said the airline should have supported families faster.
“Next step is to find out the reason for this accident. We need to know,“ he told AFP.
Air India said there were 169 Indian passengers, 53 British, seven Portuguese and a Canadian on board the flight, as well as 12 crew members.
“I really hope that those girls will be looked after by all of us,“ said Anjana Patel, the mayor of London’s Harrow borough where some of the victims lived.
While communities were in mourning, one woman recounted how she survived by arriving late at the airport.
“At that moment, I kept thinking that if only we had left a little earlier, we wouldn’t have missed our flight,“ she told the Press Trust of India news agency.
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