Updated on
Summary The PIMS admin says 123 bodies have been identified while 115 bodies handed over to victims heirs.
Dozens of coffins lined a hallway at Islamabads main hospital on Saturday as weeping relatives of the victims of the Bhoja Air plane crash arrived to collect their remains.All 127 people on board perished when the Boeing 737 from Karachi crashed and burst into flames as it attempted to land at Islamabad airport in bad weather on Friday evening.The plane was smashed to pieces by the impact of the crash, with wreckage and human limbs strewn over a wide area of farmland on the outskirts of the capital.Staff at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS), their faces covered with masks, sprayed air freshener to mask the smell of burnt flesh in the room where the remains lay.Some remains were no more than body parts, kept on stretchers and covered by white sheets.According to PIMS hospital spokesperson, the bodies are still being identified at the hospital while post mortem of all bodies have been carried out.He said only three bodies were identified through faces.The PIMS spokesperson said 123 bodies have been identified while 115 bodies handed over to victims’ heirs. He said 4 children of the same family were also among the dead people.Hospital staff sprinkled rose petals on some of the coffins as a gesture of compassion, while police and soldiers consoled relatives.At the scene of the crash, sniffer dogs joined rescue workers as they resumed the operation to recover bodies.Debris was scattered over a two-kilometre (one-mile) area, with torn fragments of the fuselage, including a large section bearing the Bhoja Air logo, littering the fields around the village of Hussain Abad.Soldiers combed the fields, collecting body parts and victims belongings.Military and aviation officials said bad weather was probably behind the crash, as there was a hail and thunderstorm over the city at the time.PM Gilani, Punjab Chief Minister, MQM leader Farooq Sattar, Interior minister Rehman Malik and Qamar Zaman Kaira visited the hospital and expressed their grief with bereaved families.Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani told reporters a judicial commission would investigate the crash, which came less than two years after the worst air disaster in Pakistan, in which 152 people died.
