142 body bags recovered, 59 bodies identified from Indonesia's plane crash: official

Security forces use heavy equipment to remove debris at the crash site of an Indonesian military C-130 transport plane which crashed yesterday into a residential area in Medan, North Sumatra, Indonesia July 1, 2015 in this photo taken by Antara Foto.  [Photo/Agencies]

JAKARTA - A total of 142 body bags have been recovered from the crash of an Indonesian military plane, an official at a hospital in Indonesia's North Sumatra capital of Medan, where the crash took place, said on Wednesday.

As the body bags may contain only parts of the bodies, it is yet unclear exactly how many bodies have been recovered.

Earlier local media reports have quoted police officials as saying that 141 bodies have been recovered from the crash.

The ill-fated C-130 Hercules plane crashed into the downtown of Medan midday Tuesday shortly after takeoff. The Indonesian military said there were 122 people aboard the plane, revising their earlier statement that 113 people were on board.

Some 59 bodies have been identified from the body bags, said Sairi Saragih, an official at the Adam Malik hospital, adding " eight of those identified bodies have been brought to the airport, to be handed over by the DVI team to their families," referring to the police's Disaster Victim Identification (DVI) team that carried out the identification process on bodies of victims from the plane crash.

Some of the identified bodies of victims would be transferred Wednesday to airports where they initially board.