The number of bodies recovered from the Andaman Sea and along Burma’s southeastern coast rose to 86 on Tuesday, one week into the search for a military transport plane that crashed on 7 June carrying 122 passengers and crew.
The latest tally, from the Office of the Commander-in-Chief, includes military officers, lower-ranking soldiers, and dozens of women and children. The ill-fated, Chinese-manufactured Y-8-200F aircraft was en route to Rangoon from the southern town of Myeik, in Tenasserim Division, when it went missing on Wednesday of last week.
[related]
The bodies are being sent to a military hospital in the town of Dawei for medical examination and identification. Thirty-five of the crash victims had been identified, the Office of the Commander-in-Chief said on Tuesday.
Authorities have not yet provided a possible explanation for the accident, nor has the plane’s fuselage been located, though debris believed to be from the aircraft has been recovered. In his first public remarks on the tragedy, military Commander-in-Chief Snr-Gen Min Aung Hlaing on Saturday suggested that inclement weather may have been a factor in the crash.
