Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Relatives cast flowers into sea for air crash victims

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Relatives cast flowers into sea for air crash victims

    Relatives cast flowers into sea for air crash victims

    People's Daily, China
    May 6 2006

    Armenia and Russia marked an official day of mourning on Friday,
    grieving relatives cast flowers into the Black Sea at the spot where
    an Armenian jet plunged into the waters, killing all 113 on board.

    To the sound of mournful music and the boom of a fog horn, they
    scattered carnations and roses over the waters six kilometres offshore
    from the Russian resort of Sochi, where the Armenian Airbus A320
    crashed on Wednesday.

    A woman holding a photograph of two young newly-weds who died in the
    crash fainted on the deck of the boat that took them to the site.

    Several others also passed out.

    Transport Minister Igor Levitin, who was in Sochi, said it was urgent
    to find the corpses of the many victims still lost in the sea more than
    half of the people on the plane. Only 50 bodies have been recovered
    so far, according to the emergency situations ministry.

    "It's very important for us to raise the bodies. That's our priority
    now," Levitin said.

    A first plane carrying 26 bodies arrived at the airport in the Armenian
    capital, Yerevan, on Friday after an initial delay, apparently due
    to a lack of coffins.

    "The victims' bodies are unrecognisable, horribly disfigured. A mother
    wouldn't know her own son," said one young man who had returned from
    Sochi after failing to find his brother-in-law, his eyes red from
    crying and fatigue.

    Flags flew at half mast across Armenia, radio and television channels
    played sad music and memorial services were held at churches across
    the country.

    Russian officials and members of the public also laid flowers at the
    Armenian embassy in Moscow for the victims of the accident. The crash
    has shocked the two countries, which have long had close ties.

    Work continues

    Meanwhile work continued to recover from the sea the victims' corpses
    and the black box flight recorders that might help establish why the
    plane crashed. Bad weather is thought to be the cause of the crash,
    according to investigators.

    The latter said they had picked up signals from what seemed to be
    the flight recorders at a location 680 metres below the surface,
    where a large section of the plane's wrecked fuselage lay.

    Russia, whose investigators are being helped by experts from France,
    is seeking assistance from other foreign countries to raise the black
    boxes since its Black Sea fleet is not fully equiped for the task,
    Levitin said.

    A bathyscaphe submersible vehicle will be sent down to the site to
    ascertain whether the signals that have been picked up are really
    coming from a section of the plane, he added.

    Relatives face the grim task of identifying their dead loved ones
    from photographs pinned on a hotel wall in Sochi, many of the bodies
    battered and bloated from submersion in the water.

    On board the plane were 85 Armenian citizens, 26 Russians, one
    Georgian and one Ukrainian, according to a list published at Yerevan
    airport. Six children were thought to be among the dead.
Working...
X