A mass burial for the victims of the Indonesian air crash last month has been held in the Sumatran capital Palembang. The cause of the accident is still unknown.

More than 90 coffins were laid out at the ceremony. Many were empty as the task of recovering the bodies of all the 97 passengers and seven crew from the SilkAir jet has proved impossible.

Macabre search

Salvage workers spent more than two weeks dredging the murky Musi River, one of Indonesia's longest and widest, trying to recover the remains of those who died.

Only six victims were identified by their body parts and the remains of three have been sent for burial abroad - two to France and one to the United States.

In place of the missing bodies many of the caskets at the mass burial were filled with the belongings of the victims and messages from their families.

A SilkAir representative: "This is in accordance with Chinese beliefs that those departed should not leave without some of their belongings."

Accident investigation continues

The cause of the disaster is still under investigation in Washington, where the US National Transportation Safety Board is examining the black box flight recorders which were salvaged from the wreckage.

The plane, a Boeing 737, is thought to have disintegrated when it fell from normal cruising altitude into a swamp in Sumatra. It was on a flight from Jakarta to Singapore and most of the passengers were Singaporeans.
 

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