KIEV, July 21 (RIA Novosti) – Ukrainian rescue workers have completed their search for the bodies of Malaysian plane crash victims in eastern Ukraine, the bodies will be sent to Kharkiv later on Monday, a senior Ukrainian official said.
“According to the Ukrainian Emergencies Ministry report, the search for the bodies has been completed, a total of 282 bodies and 87 body fragments have been recovered,” Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Volodymyr Hroisman told reporters.
A total of 282 bodies and 87 body fragments were found at the crash site, as of midday local time [9:00 GMT], the Ukrainian commission investigating the deadly tragedy said earlier in the day.
All this time bodies have been stored in refrigerated rail cars at the Torez railway station near the crash site, according to Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk. Hroisman said the remains were loaded onto two trains, which are due to depart to the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv on Monday evening.
This statement came after the OSCE monitoring mission at the scene said the trains’ departure had been delayed due to a damaged railway.
Earlier, a group of Dutch forensic experts arrived at the train station and said that bodies of the crash victims were stored in suitable environment.
On Sunday, the prime-minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic Alexander Boroday, said that the trains would remain in Torez until arrival of international experts.
The Malaysia Airlines' passenger plane was flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur crashed on July 17 near Donetsk in eastern Ukraine. All 298 people on board the airliner died, including 283 passengers and 15 crew members.
More than 800 emergency workers combed through the wreckage on Monday. Search parties scoured an area of 120 square kilometers around the plane crash site.
