Wait for bodies deepens pain of families after Air India crash

For Mistry Jignesh, 72 hours feel like an eternity.

Since Thursday evening, Mr. Jignesh and his family have been around the civil hospital in Ahmedabad, trying to find details on his 22 -year -old niece – one of the 242 passengers who died in an Air India plane crash earlier during the day.

The authorities told him that they would return the body of his niece within 72 hours normally necessary to finish the DNA match – which ends on Sunday.

But on Saturday, he was told that it could take longer because the officials are still looking for bodies of the accident site, he said.

“When people are still missing, how can they finish the DNA process by tomorrow? And if the remains of my niece had not even been found? The expectations kills us,” he said.

Officials refused to comment on Mr. Jignesh’s complaint, but a firefighter agent and a police official told the BBC on condition of anonymity that a search for passenger remains were still underway.

Rajnish Patel, additional superintendent of the civil hospital, said on Saturday that 11 victims had been identified so far on the basis of their DNA samples, adding that their families had been informed.

The Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, which was on the way to Gatwick Airport in London, crashed and broke out in a ball of fire shortly after taking off from Ahmedabad’s main airport, in what was the worst disaster in India aviation.

Only one of the 242 passengers and crew on board survived. At least eight others were killed while the plane struck the hostel of a medical college when he went down to a residential area densely populated near the airport.

Things have evolved quickly since then.

The Indian government has ordered a high -level investigation into the incident and ordered the inspection of all the Boeing 787 by local carriers.

Although the reason for the accident remains unknown, the country’s aeronautical authority said it was examining all the possible causes of the accident, also calling on foreign aviation experts to help the investigation.

Back in the hospital, doctors run to finish the DNA sampling of the victims so that they can start making bodies to their families.

But for families like that of Mr. Jignesh, time passes in the trail of the lulls.

Officials explained how the body identification process was extremely difficult – and is during small lots – because most of the remains have been charred beyond recognition.

“There is no possibility of errors here – we must make sure that each family receives the right body,” said HP Sanghvi, director of the Directorate of Judicial Sciences in the City of Gandhinagar. “But DNA identification is a long process. In addition, given the disaster scale, it is also possible that the DNA of several passengers has been damaged due to the extremely high temperature of the explosion.”

Jaishankar Pillai, a medical-legal dentist at the hospital, told journalists that his team had tried to collect charred body dental files because it could be the only source of DNA.

The wait was beyond the dying for families, many of whom refused to speak to the media, saying that they just wanted to go home with “everything that remains of their loved ones”.

“We are in no way to say anything. Words fail us right now,” said a woman, who was waiting with three family members outside the autopsy room, with the BBC with the BBC when she slipped into her car quickly.

Meanwhile, the officials of the BJ Medical College began to leave several districts of the inn, near which the plane struck. Until now, four districts – including the canteen of the Auberge, the accident site – have been completely emptied.

But students living in other neighboring wings of the hostel have also started to leave.

“In one of the districts, there are only three people left – everyone has returned home for the moment. They will soon leave, but until then, they are sitting there, all alone, haunted by the memory of what happened,” said their friend, who is also a student in college and wanted to remain anonymous.

But between the college and the hospital – in the vast expanse of this city of more than seven million people – there are many others who are also in shock from the tragedy.

The last Kartik Kalawadia heard of his brother Mahesh was on Thursday, some 30 minutes before the accident.

It was a phone call that Mahesh made to his wife: “I come home,” he told him.

She has never heard of him again.

Music producer in the Gujarati film industry, Mahesh had returned home that day and crossed the region when the plane rushed and crashed into buildings.

Kalawadia told the BBC that his brother’s last location before his phone became inaccessible a few hundred meters from the BJ Medical College.

The family has since filed a complaint for the police and has made countless visits to the civil hospital. They have not found anything so far.

“The hospital told us that they had no trace of my brother. We also tried to trace his scooter, but nothing either,” said Kalawadia.

“It is as if he had disappeared in the air.”

At a press conference on Saturday, the secretary of civil aviation SK Sinha admitted that the last two days had been “very difficult”, but assured that the investigation was taking place smoothly and in the right direction.

But Mr. Kalawadia wondered if one of these requests – in the plane crash, the victims and beyond – would help him find his brother, dead or alive.

“We do not know the answer, but we can hope that it is positive, I suppose,” he said.

Back at the civil hospital, the wait continues to haunt families.

When the BBC Mont for the last time Imtiyaz Ali Sayed This Thursday evening, he was still in denial that his family – his brother who took a tour with his wife and two children – could have died in the accident.

But on Saturday, he seemed closer to “accept the truth”.

“With only a few hours, we are now trying to decide what it will be: will we bury it here, or in the United Kingdom, where the family of his wife lives,” he said.

“For me, it doesn’t make any difference, you know?” He continued: “Because he left, from the ashes to the dust and back to God.”

Additional reports by Antriksha Pathania in Ahmedabad