New Delhi:
More than 100 bodies have not been identified after Friday’s train crash in Odisha, one of India’s deadliest on record, which killed 278 people.
It’s been more than 80 hours and officials are debating how long the bodies, many of them dismembered and mutilated, can be kept for family members to identify. To give the families more time, the bodies are embalmed. Blood samples are also collected for DNA matching.
A senior doctor at Delhi’s leading AIIMS hospital said it was “not advisable” to store damaged bodies for too long, as even embalming would not help.
A Shariff, the head of the Department of Anatomy, AIIMS, said a body can only be preserved for “years” if embalming is done correctly, within 12 hours.
“Decomposition depends on a number of factors, including ambient temperature. Bodies are fine for seven to eight hours, even 12 hours, provided the temperature is not too hot. Ice and cold storage slow decomposition,” Dr. said. Shariff to DailyExpertNews.
The AIIMS Hospital in Bhubaneswar has called for at least five freezers from Paradip Port to slow the decay of the bodies brought in after the horrific three-train accident in Balasore on Friday night.
Grieving families are struggling to identify the bodies that were damaged beyond recognition from a slideshow of images shown to them by officials.
“If embalming is not done more than 12 hours after death, it is not effective and decomposition is very fast. If the body is damaged, it is very difficult to embalm it. Fluids must be injected locally. It is not recommended to keep the bodies for too long,” said Dr. shariff.
With time running out, the railways have advised next of kin to call 139 to try and identify the deceased.
The AIIMS, Bhuvaneswar, received 123 bodies on Sunday.
“By the time AIIMS received the bodies, 30 hours had already passed. Our main goal was to prevent further decay of the bodies. The bodies were kept in cold storage and embalming was done on a war basis,” said Ashutosh Biswas, executive director of AIIMS. .
The bodies would be stored in freezers, Dr Biswas said. Each container – usually intended for shipping fish, meat or other perishable goods – holds 30-40 bodies.
He said experts from different hospitals and different cities had arrived to help preserve the bodies.