Grieving families gathered in India on Sunday to hold funerals for loved ones lost in one of the deadliest air disasters in decades, which claimed at least 279 lives.
Health officials began handing over the first bodies identified through DNA testing, delivering white coffins to relatives in the western city of Ahmedabad.
“My heart is very heavy, how do we hand over the bodies to the families?” said Tushar Leuva, an NGO worker involved in the recovery efforts.
Only one person survived from the 242 passengers and crew aboard the Air India jet, which crashed into a residential area in Ahmedabad on Thursday, also killing at least 38 people on the ground.
“How will they react when they open the gate? But we’ll have to do it,” Leuva told AFP at the city’s mortuary.
One grieving relative, who asked to remain anonymous, said authorities advised families not to open the coffins when receiving the remains.
Witnesses described seeing charred bodies and scattered debris. The Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner burst into flames shortly after takeoff, crashing into buildings housing medical staff.
DNA testing has been underway to help identify victims, with 31 confirmed as of Sunday morning.
“It’s a slow and careful process — it has to be,” said Dr. Rajnish Patel from Ahmedabad’s civil hospital. Most of the injured on the ground have been discharged, though one or two remain in critical condition.
– Girls left orphaned –
The cause of the crash remains unclear, and Indian authorities have ordered inspections of all Air India Dreamliners. Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu Kinjarapu said the recovered flight data recorder is expected to provide key insights.
The only survivor, British national Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, lost his brother in the crash. The flight carried 169 Indians, 53 Britons, seven Portuguese citizens, one Canadian, and 12 crew members.
One of the passengers, Arjun Patoliya, was a father of two young girls. He had travelled to India to scatter his late wife’s ashes.
“I hope those girls will be cared for by all of us,” said Anjana Patel, mayor of London’s Harrow borough, where some victims lived. “There are no words for what these families are going through.”
While the nation mourns, 28-year-old Bhoomi Chauhan shared how she survived by sheer luck — she missed the flight.
“The airline staff had already closed check-in,” she told the Press Trust of India. “At that moment, I kept thinking, if only we had left a little earlier, we would have been on that plane.”
