Relatives try to identify bodies of loved ones

Families of the victims of India’s deadliest train crash in decades filled a hospital in Bhubaneswar city to try to identify the bodies of relatives, as railway officials recommended a criminal probe of the crash that killed 275 people, according to The Associated Press.

Distraught relatives of passengers killed in the crash Friday lined up outside the eastern city’s All India Institute of Medical Sciences. Meanwhile, survivors being treated in hospitals said they are still trying to make sense of the horrific disaster.

Outside the hospital, two large screens cycled through photos of the bodies, the faces so bloodied and charred that they were hardly recognizable.

Each body had a number assigned to it, and relatives stood near the screen and watched as the photos changed, looking for details like clothing for clues.

Many of the people said they spent days on desperate journeys from neighboring states, traveling on multiple trains, buses or rented cars to identify and claim bodies, a process that stretched into a third day.

So far only 45 bodies have been identified, and 33 have been handed over to relatives, said Mayur Sooryavanshi, an administrator who was overseeing the identification process at the hospital in the capital of Odisha state, about 200 kilometers (125 miles) south of the site of the train crash in Balasore.

“It’s the first time I have dealt with something like this,” said Dr. Utkal Keshari Suna, a senior resident at the Bhubaneshwar hospital.

“It’s been a very difficult experience. I am in forensics, so I am used to dealing with dead bodies, but nothing like this,” he said, standing inside the mortuary, where the air was thick with the smell of the dead.

“It’s horrific. Time has also passed, so many bodies have started decomposing, so it’s becoming more and more difficult to identify them,” he said.