TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - East Java Police authorities have announced the official closure of the crisis centre for AirAsia flight QZ8501 incident on Thursday, March 19, 2015. The centre - located at the Mahameru Building at East Java's Police Headquarters - had served as an information centre for relatives of those who remains missing and/or have been declared as dead when the doomed flight crashed in the Karimata Strait in late 2014.
"As our effort to provide closure and information for relatives of the victims has almost neared its' completion as it enters its' 82nd day, we hereby announced the official closure of the crisis centre," said the Head of East Java Police, Inspector Gen. Anas Yusuf on Thursday, March 19, 2015.
Anas said that the decision to close the crisis centre was reached after the authorities had consulted with the relatives of the victims, before adding that only a very few amount of relatives still continues to visit the crisis centre. "We will officially close the crisis centre starting on Friday," he said.
In the future, Anas explained that if the identification process of a victim's remain, which has yet to be identified have been completed, the next-of-kin of the victim in question will be contacted over the phone, before adding that the East Java Police's Disaster Victim Identification (DVI) Unit will not cease from working despite the closure of the crisis centre.
Anas said that the DVI Unit will continue to work as long as the National Search-and-Rescue Agency (BASARNAS) team finds any remains that might possibly belong to a victim of the doomed flight. "This includes the eight remaining remains which has yet to be identified, which are currently still being stored in the morgue at Bhayangkara's Hospital," he said.
At the same occasion, the Head of the DVI Unit, Sr. Comr. Budiyono, said that parts of the remains that had just been successfully identified turned out to belong to victims which had already been previously identified.
Budiyono added that the DVI Unit has so far received a total of 115 intact and partial remains of victims of the QZ8501 disaster, and 107 remains have been successfully identified. "As aforementioned, eight has yet to be identified and are still currently undergoing an intensive identification process at Bhayangkara Hospital," he said.
MOHAMMAD SYARRAFAH
