Bodies of S Korean Couple to be Sent Home Soon

Surabaya, E Java (Antara) - Bodies of a South Korean couple - Seong Beom Park, 37, and Kyung Hwa Lee, 34, - who were killed in the recent AirAsia crash, will be sent to their home country in the very near future. The Indonesian police's Disaster Victims Identification team officially handed over the two bodies to AirAsia which later presented them to the victims' relatives, Senior Commissioner Awi Setiyono, a spokesman of the East Java Police, said here, Wednesday. Earlier, their relatives wanted to keep the couple's bodies in Surabaya until the couple's one-year-old baby was also found. Park and Lee were with their baby aboard the ill-fated AirAsia flight QZ8501, that crashed in Java Sea while flying from Surabaya to Singapore. But until now, the baby's body has not been found yet. When Park's body was found, he was wearing a baby sling but the baby was no longer with him. The bodies of Park and Lee were successfully identified by the DVI team on Sunday (Jan 11). The DVI team has so far managed to identify 38 bodies out of 48 victims that have been sent to Bhayangkara Hospital on the 18th day since the accident happened. The AirAsia flight QZ8501 with 162 people on board crashed on December 28, 2014, most likely due to bad weather. The victims comprised 155 Indonesians, three South Koreans, a Briton, a Singaporean, a French, and a Malaysian. In the meantime, the fuselage of AirAsia flight QZ8501 was finally found, President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo said in Jakarta, on Wednesday during a press conference at the Presidential Palace. "The main body of the plane was found this afternoon," the president stated, adding that efforts to retrieve the fuselage from the seabed will be conducted on Thursday (January 15). (*)