Myanmar Cremates Some of thirty one Bods Retrieved in Missing Plane Disaster, World News, US News
Myanmar Cremates Some of thirty one Bods Retrieved in Missing Plane Disaster
June 9, 2017, at Two:43 a.m.
Share
Family members of victims from a military plane crash sob during a funeral ceremony in Dawei, Myanmar June 9, 2017. REUTERS/Soe Zeya Tun Reuters
By Aye Win Myint and and Wa Lone
YANGON/SANLAN, Myanmar (Reuters) – Myanmar on Friday cremated ten of the thirty one figures pulled from the waters off its southern coast as the hunt for a military transport plane that went missing over the Andaman Sea with one hundred twenty two people aboard spread into a third day.
Eight navy ships and sonar systems have joined the search for victims of Wednesday’s incident, along with twenty civilian boats, despite persistent stormy weather, the military said.
More than one hundred stunned relatives and friends gathered at a cemetery in the southern coastal town of Dawei, some weeping calmly and others suggesting prayers, to commemorate ten identified victims who were cremated on a rainy afternoon.
“What we found now is my granddaughter. Her father and mother’s bods are not found yet,” said one of the mourners, Ma Myat Thaw May, his voice quivering as he spoke of the 7-month-old damsel.
Scores of soldiers waited on standby to help if more bods need to be carried ashore in the fishing village of Sanlan, about six hundred km (372 miles) from Myanmar’s largest city, Yangon.
Twenty-three adults and eight children made up the tally of bods searchers have pulled from the Andaman Sea since Wednesday, the military said on its official page on social media site Facebook.
“We have not received any information about survivors,” said Phyu Phyu Win, a regional social welfare and ease official. “Hopefully someone would get through.”
Soldiers, family members and squad were on board the weekly flight from several coastal towns to Yangon when it went missing.
The Chinese-made Y-8-200F transport plane lost contact twenty nine minutes after takeoff, while at a height of Legal,000 feet (Five,485 meters), about forty three miles (70 km) west of Dawei, the military said.
An aircraft wheel, two life jackets and some bags with clothes – believed to be from the missing plane – were found on Thursday. Some oil patches were also spotted, the military said.
The cause of the incident has yet to be confirmed.
State-owned China National Aero-Technology Import & Export Corporation, maker of the plane, said it would assist Myanmar authorities in investigating the crash.
Survivors are unlikely more than twenty four hours after the plane lost contact, despite warm sea temperatures, experts have said.
Many figures fragmented into several lumps and no victim wearing a life jacket has yet been recovered, a member of the emergency team said.
Aircraft accidents, involving both civilian and military planes, are not uncommon in Myanmar.
A military helicopter crashed last June, killing three military personnel. Five were killed in February last year when an air force aircraft crashed in the capital, Naypyitaw, media said.
(Reporting by Wa Lone, Yimou Lee and Aye Win Myint; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)