Grief-stricken Indonesians queued with photos or waited on DNA tests Wednesday, to find out if their missing loved ones were among bodies being held in a hospital morgue after a devastating tsunami tore families apart.
AFP
Officials have been carrying out the grisly task of checking the photos, many on mobile telephones, against bodies in the morgue.
"We've been asking them about when was the last time they saw their relative, what they were wearing, if they have any identifying marks on their body," said Nariyana, head of the local police forensics and medical services unit, who goes by one name.
The task has been made more difficult by multiple relatives making duplicate reports of missing loved ones, Nariyana said.
An eruption at the Anak Krakatoa volcano, which sits in the middle of the Sunda Strait between Java and Sumatra islands, caused a section of the crater to collapse and slide into the ocean, triggering the killer tsunami, officials have said.
The disaster agency slightly raised the death toll Wednesday to 430, with 1,495 people injured and another 159 missing.
