Kathmandu, February 28

The last rites of the victims of yesterday’s Air Dynasty helicopter crash that occurred in Pathibhara area of Taplejung district killing all seven people on board, could not be held today, as doctors at Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital have been struggling to identify the bodies.

Dr Rijen Shrestha, acting director at the Department of Forensic Science, told THT tonight that they had started matching the ante-mortem details with body parts of the victims. “The team has completed the post-mortem process and started matching the ante-mortem information,” he said.

Another doctor who talked to THT on the premises of TUTH claimed that the team had identified bodies of four victims after successfully matching the ante-mortem and post-mortem details. He, however, refused to share the identity details. “It will take some more time to identify three other bodies as they are beyond recognition,” he said, adding that families of victims will be notified about the details early tomorrow morning.

Remains of the bodies of seven, including Tourism Minister Rabindra Adhikari and prominent tourism entrepreneur Ang Tshering Sherpa, were airlifted to Suketar Airport by army personnel today. The remains were then brought to Kathmandu in Nepali Army’s MI17 helicopter before they were taken to TUTH in seven ambulances.

Majority of the bodies have suffered severe burns and are beyond recognition, according to forensic expert Dr Harihar Wosti, one of the 25 team members identifying the bodies. No personal belonging was found on anybody, he said. “It is difficult to identify bodies as the collision has dismembered them and some body parts are even charred,” said Dr Wosti.

Doctors involved in forensic test spent most of their time today collecting personal, physical, medical and dental information of the deceased.

This process is called ante-mortem, under which families are asked to provide information on clothes the deceased were wearing, gadgets and jewellery they possessed, their height, weight and skin colour, scars or tattoos on their bodies and finger prints. The families of the deceased were also asked to supply their medical and dental reports.

“We have collected all this information and are trying to match it with body parts that we have received,” Dr Wosti said. “We have also started performing post-mortem of the bodies.”

After all these processes are over the bodies will be reconstituted by stitching the dismembered parts before they are handed over to families, according to Dr Wosti.

“It might appear that we are taking a lot of time to hand over the bodies to families, but the process is tedious and complicated. We do not want to make mistakes,” Dr Shrestha said.