VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

The Disaster Victim Identification (DVI) Team of the National Police's Health and Medical Center have received 188 body bags containing the remains of Sriwijaya Air Flight SJ 182 victims.

"Up until today, at 9 am, we have received a total of 188 body bags," said Commander of the DVI Team, Police Grand Commissioner Hery Wijatmoko in a press conference in the National Police Hospital in East Jakarta, Sunday.

From the 188 body bags, 162 had gone through complete examination sequences, while the other 26 body bags are still being identified by the team.

"This morning we carried out a four-table examination with four teams, as well as the Indonesia Automatic Fingerprint Identification System (Inafis) personnel," he explained.

Up until Sunday morning, the DVI Team have received 351 genetic or DNA samples from the victims of the ill-fated Sriwijaya Air Flight 182 and the families, consisting of 208 post mortem samples and 142 ante mortem samples.

Wijatmoko explained that his team continue to gather ante mortem samples for identification purposes.

"There are a number of ante mortem samples that we are pursuing, we gather them for further examinations, including a sample from Central Java, as the DNA examination require an in-depth investigation to determine their identity," he said.

Up until Sunday morning, the team has identified 24 victims of the crash through fingerprint and DNA sample matching schemes. They include Okky Bisma, Khasanah, Fadly Satrianto, Asy Habul Yamin, Indah Halimah Putri, Agus Minarni, and Ricko.

There were also the remains of Ihsan Adhlan Hakim, Mia Trasetyani, Yohanes Suherdi, Pipit Priyono, Supianto, Toni Ismail, Dinda Amelia, Isti Yudha Prastika, Putri Wahyuni dan Rahmawati, Makrufatul Yeti, Rosi Wahyuni, Rizki Wahyudi, Nelly, Beben Sopian, Arifin Ilyas and Arneta Fauzia.

The ill-fated Sriwijaya Air Flight 182 was headed from Jakarta to Pontianak when it lost contact on Saturday, January 9, at 2:40 pm local time, it was then discovered that it had crashed in the waters of Kepulauan Seribu.

The airplane took off from Soekarno Hatta Airport at 2:36 pm local time, after a delay due to unfavourable weather, as the flight was previously scheduled to take off at 1:35 pm local time. (antaranews)