RUSSIA/ UKRAINE: Relatives grief over their loved ones while Russia observes day of national mourning for the 170 people killed in the crash of an airliner in Ukraine.

Distraught relatives gathered in Sukha Balka, about 45 km (30 miles) north of Donetsk on Thursday (August 24), on their way to the site of the crash of a Russian airliner which killed everyone on board. Orthodox priests laid down flowers in memory of the 170 passengers and crew who were on board the Russian airliner which crashed after flying into a severe thunderstorm on Tuesday (August 22). On Wednesday (August 23), rescue teams recovered all the bodies from the wreckage. Russian and Ukrainian search teams, numbering up to 400 workers, divided the crash site into squares. Workers wearing white gloves put bodies in black plastic bags and loaded them on to stretchers for removal from the scene. "First of all, one of the factors (in the rescue operation after the crash) was the bad weather; we could not get here easily with all our equipment. And part of the plane wreckage was stuck in the marshland in the valley, and we had to work in difficult conditions," explained the chief of the Ukraine Ministry of emergency situation for the Donetsk region, Leonid Kastorski, the problems facing the rescues teams. According to the official passenger list posted by Pulkovo Airlines on its web page (www.pulkovo.ru), there were 170 people on board, including 10 crew. But late on Wednesday (August 23) Interfax news agency quoted Russian Transport Minister Yuri Levitin as saying that rescuers had recovered 171 "bodies and fragments of bodies". The agency did not give further details or explain the discrepancy in figures. Officials initially said flight 612 was probably hit by lightning, but investigators warned against drawing premature conclusions. Russian television said the aircraft had received authorisation to cut across Ukraine's eastern tip, where it flew into a thunderstorm before coming down close to a village about 45 km (30 miles) north of Donetsk. Russia observed a day of national mourning. Flags were lowered to half-mast, and church prayers were said in Moscow and St. Petersburg, the home of most of the victims of the disaster. In St Petersburg, where many of the victims lived, mourners led by the regional governor lit candles at a memorial service in the colonnaded Kazan Cathedral. Grieving relatives, their heads bowed, gathered on Thursday by a meadow where a Russian airliner bringing holidaymakers back from the seaside crashed in eastern Ukraine, killing all 170 on board. As flags flew at half staff to mark a day of mourning throughout Russia, a wooden cross with black ribbons stood by the gully where the Soviet-designed Tu-154 slammed into the ground on Tuesday after flying into a violent storm.

ITN Source | August 24, 2006

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