‘We put into sacks whatever we could find’: victims of Pakistan crash to be identified by DNA
Three foreigners were among the dead, officials said, and Chinese state media said one of its nationals was also among the victims
DNA testing will be used to identify the 48 charred victims of a plane crash in the mountainous north of Pakistan, authorities said on Thursday, as the country mourned one of the worst aviation disasters in its history.
The dead bodies will be taken to Islamabad in helicopters ... for DNA testing and identification. Not one body was intact
“The dead bodies will be taken to Islamabad in helicopters ... for DNA testing and identification,” said Muhammad Abbas, a hospital official at Ayub Medical Complex in the northern garrison town of Abbottabad. “Not one body was intact.”
Rescuers, including hundreds of villagers, had overnight pulled charred and smoking remains from the wreckage of the aircraft, parts of which were found hundreds of metres away from the main site in Abbottabad district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
A reporter at the site near the village of Saddha Batolni said part of the plane remained on fire more than five hours after the crash.
“The bodies were burnt so badly we could not recognise whether they were women or men,” said one villager in his thirties, who declined to give his name. “We put into sacks whatever we could find ... and carried them down to the ambulance.”
Six of the victims had already been identified through fingerprints, according to Ali Baz, another official at the Ayub Medical Complex. Details of the identified passengers were pasted on the wall outside the mortuary. The aircraft issued a Mayday call at 4.14pm on Wednesday before losing radar contact and crashing.