REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, PANGKALAN BUN -- Two bodies that have just been evacuated of the ill-fated AirAsia flight ZQ8501 could no longer be recognized physically because of advanced decay conditions.
"The bodies are already in advanced decay conditions and are very difficult to be recognized physically," Sr Comr Hariyanto, the coordinator of the Disaster Victim Identification (DVI) Team of the Indonesian Police Headquarters said here on Wednesday (7/1).
The two bodies of adult female victims have been put in coffins at RSUD Sultan Imanuddin Hospital to be flown from Iskandar Airbase here to Surabaya, East Java.
One of the bodies was evacuated to the hospital on Tuesday evening and is kept in a cold storage of the hospital's morgue.
The other body arrived at 2 a.m on Wednesday because it was evacuated with a ship. It could not be evacuated with a helicopter due to bad weather.
Up to Wednesday morning, rescuers have evacuated 39 bodies of the AirAsia flight ZQ5801 victims. All bodies are flown to Surabaya for identification process and for handing over to their families.
AirAsia flight QZ8501 went missing on December 28 en route from Surabaya, East Java, to Singapore.
It was carrying 162 people on board, including 155 Indonesians, three South Koreans, a Briton, a Singaporean, a French, and a Malaysian.
The ill-fated plane is believed to have crashed in the Java Sea near Karimata Strait, some 95 nautical miles from Pangkalan Bun, Central Kalimantan.
Rescuers have not discovered the plane's fuselage so far.
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