FRANCE-CRASH/PREFECT Everything done to support victims' relatives, region official says
Record ID:
383610
FRANCE-CRASH/PREFECT Everything done to support victims' relatives, region official says
- Title: FRANCE-CRASH/PREFECT Everything done to support victims' relatives, region official says
- Date: 31st March 2015
- Summary: SEYNE-LES-ALPES, FRANCE (MARCH 31, 2015) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF REGIONAL PREFECT PATRICIA WILLAERT ARRIVING JOURNALISTS (SOUNDBITE) (French) REGIONAL PREFECT, PATRICIA WILLAERT, SAYING: "All the families are being taken care of through a plan that will remain in place until all the families that have expressed the will to come have arrived, so that they are received, accompanied and supported in the best possible way. Knowing that beyond this, our main concern is to provide them with the best conditions to respect their extremely intense pain." WILLAERT TALKING TO MEDIA (SOUNDBITE) (French) REGIONAL PREFECT, PATRICIA WILLAERT, SAYING: "The objective is to identify the victims as fast as possible and to return the victims to their families and relatives. The identification part is supervised by the public prosecutor with the intention to return the victims to the families as soon as possible after the procedure is completed. As long as this procedure is not completed, indeed, it will not be possible to approach the (crash) site closer than the existing location that faces the mountain where the crash, this catastrophe, took place, in Le Vernet." JOURNALISTS WILLAERT LEAVING VIEW OF CRASH SITE WOMAN APPROACHING MEMORIAL WITH FLOWERS POLICEMEN GUARDING MEMORIAL POLICE VANS AND MOUNTAINS
- Embargoed: 15th April 2015 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: France
- Country: France
- Topics: General
- Reuters ID: LVAEAIOUNDUSD0VT2CCUBPW2GF5A
- Story Text: A regional official told a news conference on Tuesday (March 31) that a plan put in place to receive families and relatives of a plane crash that left 150 dead in the French Alps would remain in place as long as needed.
Alpes-de-Haute-Provence district prefect Patricia Willaert said the focus of her actions was to provide victims' relatives with all the support they need when visiting the crash site.
"All the families are being taken care of through a plan that will remain in place until all the families that have expressed the will to come have arrived, so that they are received, accompanied and supported in the best possible way. Knowing that beyond this, our main concern is to provide them with the best conditions to respect their extremely intense pain," Willaert told reporters.
Willaert said the relatives wouldn't yet be able to access the crash site, adding the only purpose of a newly dug trail would be to help investigators and police reach the impact point.
"The objective is to identify the victims as fast as possible and to return the victims to their families and relatives. The identification part is supervised by the public prosecutor with the intention to return the victims to the families as soon as possible after the procedure is completed. As long as this procedure is not completed, indeed, it will not be possible to approach the (crash) site closer than the existing location that faces the mountain where the crash, this catastrophe, took place, in Le Vernet," Willaert said.
French President Francois Hollande said earlier that all 150 victims of the Germanwings plane crash in the French Alps would be identified by the end of the week.
The announcement came at odd with a statement by the head of the French police forensic team, who said on Monday it would take two to four months to identify the victims and that there was no certainty all would be identified because of the high speed at which the plane crashed.
The head of the French Gendarmerie's criminal research Institute, Colonel Francois Daoust, told reporters that some 400 samples from body parts taken from the crash had allowed police to identify 78 different DNA profiles so far, but no identifications had been made as yet.
The plane's second flight recorder, which contains flight data, has not yet been found. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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