"Until now, the number of corpses that have been confirm is 31. Of the number, 30 have been evacuated to Surabaya, and one is still aboard a ship, and will be transported to Pangkalan Bun first," Soelistyo said here, Sunday.
In addition, a section of the ill-fated plane was also found by the joint team deployed in the search of the missing AirAsia flight QZ8501.
The search and rescue operations as well as evacuation process of the victims were hindered by bad weather that include heavy rains, strong wind and huge waves reaching a height of up to four meters.
Due to bad weather, the underwater search to find the planes fuselage was halted, he noted.
"The operation is halted until the weather improves," he said.
Nine ships are ready in a certain location where divers will look for the fuselage.
The AirAsia flight QZ8501 disappeared on Dec. 28 en route from Surabaya, East Java, to Singapore.
It was carrying 162 people on board, comprising 155 Indonesians, three South Koreans, a British, a Singaporean, a French and a Malaysian.
The ill-fated plane is believed to have crashed in the Java Sea, near Karimata Strait, some 95 Nautical miles (Nm) from Pangkalan Bun, Central Kalimantan.
The search is being co-ordinated by the National Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas), by involving a number of concerned Indonesian institutions such as the military, police and the transportation ministry, as well as foreign countries such as Malaysia, Singapore, Australia, the US, Japan, China, South Korea, India, and Russia.
In the meantime, Major Setiawan, a pilot of the Indonesian Air Forces CN 295 aircraft, earlier claimed that he had spotted three bodies of AirAsia flight QZ8501s victims, floating in Karimata Strait on Sunday.
The three bodies were seen clearly but it was not known whether they were men or women, Major Setiawan said in Iskandar Air Force Base, Pangkalan Bun, Sunday.
(T.SYS/A/F001/F001)
Editor: Aditia Maruli Radja
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