Relatives identify crash victims

A female relative faints after hearing the news

Weeping relatives of passengers on the doomed Gulf Air flight assembled at a Manama hotel where they were asked to identify their loved ones.

A man fights back tears

There were tragic scenes as relatives beat themselves and screamed hysterically on hearing names they recognised, read out by an emotional airline official.

"This is the worst day of my life. I lost a part of me," a sobbing Khalifa al-Hashil, 45, of Saudi Arabia, told Associated Press news agency.

His 35-year-old brother Mohammed was on the plane which crashed into the Persian Gulf waters on Wednesday night.

Some relatives drew comfort from reciting verses from the Muslim holy book The Koran; some collapsed.

Grief-stricken relatives have been given their own room

Women dressed in ankle-length black chadors fell to their knees weeping and screaming, as men tried in vain to comfort them.

Relatives were also angry at the delay in confirming the names.

"Come on, my mother at home is sick, we have been up for hours," one man yelled.

After the passengers' names were read out, relatives were taken to a room where they identified the victims from photographs taken after the bodies were recovered.

Most of the photographs showed victims in body bags with only disfigured faces showing.

Three days of mourning

The families are later being taken to identify the bodies at morgues of several hospitals in Manama.

In Cairo, where relatives had already gathered at the airport,134 people have requested to join a special flight to transport relatives to Bahrain.

Most passengers were from Bahrain and Egypt

Egyptians and Bahrainis made up most of those on board.

The emir of Bahrain, Sheik Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa, has declared three days of mourning.

Earlier, the tragedy cast a gloom over Manama airport, which echoed with the screams and cries of dozens of red-eyed relatives.

The airport was encircled by security personnel who gave access only to relatives on those on board.

A list of the victims published by the airline on Thursday appeared to include many members of the same families, some of whom had young children.

Several regional media reports spoke of entire families who died.

Many Gulf and expatriate families usually return to their home elsewhere in the region during the summer.