Another body found at Garuda crash site

JAKARTA (JP): Rescue workers found Thursday the remains of another victim of the Garuda Indonesia Airbus crash, bringing the total number of newly discovered victims to four.

All 222 passengers and 12 crew members were killed when the Airbus A-300-B4 crashed in Buah Nabar village in Sibolangit, on Sept. 26. The plane was heading for North Sumatra's capital Medan from Jakarta.

Apart from identified victims that have been returned to families for burial, rescue workers buried in a mass grave 48 coffins consisting of 44 bodies and charred limbs and remains.

The four victims found Wednesday and Thursday were already badly decomposed. Two of them were identified as Soekamto and his wife, both residents of Tanjung Morawa, Deli Serdang regency in North Sumatra.

The other victim found Wednesday was an unidentified male, while the gender of the last discovered victim could not be determined as many of the body parts were missing.

A Garuda Airline official insisted yesterday that the newly discovered bodies did not change the official number of crash victims. Garuda's Medan branch sales manager Aryo Bardian said the number of those on board the aircraft and the death toll still stood at 234.

However, he said most of the victims were unidentifiable.

An Airbus aircraft has the capacity to carry 240 people.

Aryo was quoted by Antara as saying that 15 of the 222 passengers were registered under different names. It was presumed that these people had used tickets bought under other people's names.

"Maybe they bought the tickets from registered passengers who canceled their flight just before the plane took off from Jakarta's Soekarno-Hatta Airport," Aryo said. (imn)