Grieving Relatives of India Air Crash Victims Wait for Bodies to Be Identified

Families of the victims of India’s deadliest aviation disaster in decades lined up at the main hospital in the western city of Ahmedabad early Friday, ready to offer DNA samples that could help identify the bodies of loved ones they had seen off less than a day before.

The cruel but necessary exercise, which began hours after the crash of the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner bound for London on Thursday afternoon, continued overnight as a clearer sense of the devastation began to emerge. Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in Ahmedabad, which is the capital of his home state of Gujarat, to survey the scene and visit those injured when the plane crashed into a building.

Officials say that at least 269 people died in the jet’s crash and its aftermath, cautioning that the death toll could rise as emergency teams continue to comb through the site of the devastation. In addition to 241 passengers and crew, dozens perished as they were caught in the path of a plane that began descending on the dining hall of a nearby college seconds after takeoff from a nearby airport, before exploding into flames on the ground.

Only one passenger survived and was being treated for his injuries, the airline and Indian officials have said. The details of how he survived are still patchy.