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Bodies may not all be identified
25/08/2008 19:09 - (SA)
Daniel Woolls
Madrid - Forensic teams have identified the bodies of more than half the 154 victims of last week's plane crash in Madrid, but some may never be identified because of problems in obtaining DNA from relatives, the interior minister said on Monday.
So far 90 sets of remains have been identified, Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba told reporters after he made a hospital visit to two of the 18 people who survived the disaster.
"We are working day and night," the minister said earlier in an interview with Cadena Ser radio, predicting that most of the remaining bodies will identified in a matter of days.
Many of the bodies of victims of Wednesday's crash of a Spanair MD-82 bound for the Canary Islands were burned beyond recognition, and forensic teams are using DNA techniques to identify them.
The minister said the process is taking longer than expected because of the poor condition of some sets of remains and difficulty in obtaining DNA samples from relatives, especially those of foreigners who died in the disaster. One of the victims was a foreign-born, adopted child.
"If you have a sample from a brother or a father, it is easy.
"But if we get away from this and have to turn to more distant relatives, things are much, much more complicated," Perez Rubalcaba said in the radio interview.
"Will some bodies go unidentified? I cannot tell you right now, but it is a possibility," the minister said.
Rubalcaba said the identification process is being carried out meticulously, addressing fears of some families that errors might be committed.
This is a painful issue in Spain because in May 2003, 62 Spanish peacekeepers returning home from Afghanistan died when their Russian-built YAK-42 plane crashed in Turkey and mistakes were made in identifying many of the bodies. Some families were given the wrong remains.
- AP
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