First AirAsia funeral as bad weather hampers search

         
Pangkalan Bun (Indonesia) (AFP) - Relatives held the first funeral for a victim of AirAsia Flight QZ8501 Thursday as bad weather hampered efforts to locate the wreckage of the plane which crashed

into the Java Sea off Borneo with 162 aboard. Nine bodies have so far been retrieved in the search for the Airbus A320-200, which disappeared from radar during a storm Sunday en route from Indonesia's second city of Surabaya to Singapore.

Search officials said the return of rough weather was hindering efforts to locate the plane and the rest of the bodies.

"The problem we faced today is unfriendly weather conditions," search and rescue agency chief Bambang Soelistyo told a press conference. "The waves were between three and four metres."

Pointing to weather charts, he said the search teams would persevere even though conditions were expected to remain bad for days to come.

"From tomorrow until the fourth, with the existing forces, calculations and tactics we have, we will still be fighting, but I hope we can still get some results despite having to face such conditions."

He said a National Transport Safety Committee team was in Pangkalun Bun, a town on Borneo island with the nearest airstrip to the crash site.
- First funeral -
"Tomorrow they will depart to try to find the flight recorder," he said.

French and Singaporean experts were also set to join the search for the black boxes, which are crucial to determining the cause of the crash.

The first funeral took place Thursday afternoon after one of the bodies was formally identified as a woman named Hayati Lutfiah Hami, and was handed over to her family in Surabaya.

                                                                

After prayers at her home, the coffin was taken for burial at a Muslim cemetery nearby, with more than a hundred neighbours in attendance.

"I am grateful to God that my sister-in-law was found and I hope the rescuers find the others as soon as possible," Agung Wahyu Darmono, 38, said.

Police said they were still working on formal identification of one young man.

A crisis centre for identifying the victims has been set up at a hospital in Surabaya with facilities to store 150 bodies.