Gruesome task delayed by snow

2005-02-08 12:20

But Khak - Fresh snow dimmed hopes on Tuesday that troops could retrieve the first bodies from the wreckage of an Afghan jetliner which crashed into a freezing mountaintop last week with the apparent loss of all 104 people on board.

Nato soldiers on Monday found human remains but no survivors at the crash site 30km east of Kabul and plans were laid to fly medical specialists to the scene to begin the gruesome task of collecting body parts.

But an Afghan army spokesperson said troops who tried to camp near the site had been forced to descend by the freezing temperatures, and heavy cloud cover was keeping helicopters on the ground.

"They'll try to go back up on foot today, but the best chance is from the air," spokesperson Major Mohammed Arif Anes said. "We need God's help."

The Boeing 737-200, flown by Kam Air, Afghanistan's first post-Taliban private airline, vanished last Thursday after it approached Kabul airport in a snowstorm from the western city of Herat.

Officials expect all 96 passengers and eight crew - most of them Afghans, but also including more than 20 foreigners - perished in what would be Afghanistan's worst aviation disaster.

Nato helicopters spotted parts of the wreckage 3 300m up Chaperi Mountain on Saturday, but freezing fog, cloud and up to 2.5m of snow have hampered the recovery operation.

Officials say it could take weeks to collect all the bodies, fuelling the frustration of relatives worried about scavenging animals and fast-spreading rumours that looters may have already reached the crash site.

"A hand might be here and a foot somewhere else, so it will very difficult," said General Mohammed Zahir Azimi, a Defence Ministry spokesperson. "As well as the cold and the snow, there could be mines up there."

Officials say it is unclear why the plane struck the top of the mountain and are calling in United States experts to help investigate.

Nine Turks, six Americans and three Italians were believed to have been on the plane, though a final list has yet to be released. The airline say the crew was made of up of six Russians and two Afghans, although Moscow said only four Russian citizens were missing.

Afghanistan's most recent commercial crash was on March 19, 1998, when an Ariana Airlines Boeing 727 slammed into a peak south of Kabul, killing all 45 passengers and crew. The US military has suffered a string of deadly air accidents in Afghanistan, most involving helicopters.

- AP