Rescuers from the Indian Navy on Monday extricated one more body from INS Sindhurakshak, taking the number of victims recovered from the fire-devastated submarine to seven even as professional savers from reputed companies commenced preliminary survey activities.
According to Naval sources, the body has been taken to state-run J J Hospital for post-mortem.
Battling difficult conditions, the Navy had till Sunday extricated badly charred bodies of six of the 18 victims trapped in the sunken vessel. Also, they had managed to gain access to the forward compartment of the ill-fated submarine by breaking open the jammed hatches.
Earlier, sources had said the Navy divers were carrying out the task of searching within the submarine by “feeling each inch” due to zero visibility within flooded compartments to locate the missing bodies and mark a probable route to be used for further rescue operations.
18 Navy personnel, including three officers, were on board the Russia-made submarine when a devastating fire ripped through the frontline underwater craft following serial explosions on Tuesday midnight.
The Navy has instituted a Board of Inquiry to probe the cause of the explosions and fire which is expected to submit its report within four weeks.
Mumbai Police have also registered a case of accidental death in connection with the worst peacetime tragedy suffered by the Navy.
The Navy medical authorities had also started the process of collecting blood samples of family members of the 18 personnel aboard the vessel.
The blood samples would be needed for DNA profiling of the incinerated bodies of the victims, to establish the identities.
Dental tests on to identify recovered bodies of sailors
While operations are on to fish out the bodies of Navy personnel feared dead in the INS Sindhurakshak disaster on August 14, a battery of tests are being conducted on the bodies of the deceased at naval hospital, INHS Asvini, and the state-run JJ Hospital.
The bodies were sent to INHS Asvini in Navy Nagar, from where they were later transferred to JJ Hospital in Byculla. Till Sunday evening, JJ hospital in Byculla had conducted post-mortems on six bodies.
There is hope that the bodies will be identified through their dental records, which are available with the Navy.
“Doctors at INHS Asvini have sent the bodies for post-mortem after taking records of dental patterns from the bodies. The patterns will be matched with the archived dental records to expedite identification of bodies,” said a doctor at the forensic medicine department from JJ Hospital.
The doctors at forensic medicine department in JJ Hospital are also performing diatom tests on the bodies, which will help ascertain if a deceased died before drowning or after.
“Whenever there are signs of drowning, unicellular algae from the localised water — in this case, the sea — enter the body. We are checking the extent of diatom spread in the bodies of the personnel and will match it with samples of sea water to ascertain if death occurred after drowning,” said another doctor from the department of forensic medicine at JJ Hospital.
The doctor added that they are checking for the presence of diatoms in the liver, spleen, heart and lungs of the deceased.
“In cases where death occurs due to drowning, diatoms are found in peripheral organs like the spleen and liver. This is because the heart, which is still beating as the person drowns, pumps the diatom-laden water inhaled through the lungs to the liver and spleen,” said the doctor.
However, in cases where bodies are thrown into the water after drowning, blood circulation has stopped before water enters the lungs and the presence of diatoms will be restricted to the lungs and heart, explained the doctor.
The bodies that have reached JJ Hospital for autopsies will be lodged in the hospital’s cabinet cold storage capacity, maintained at the temperature of 2-4°C, as the morgue in naval hospital INHS Asvini does not have the wherewithal to maintain such low temperatures, said a source.
Bone and tooth samples from the bodies have been sent for DNA analysis at state-run forensic laboratory in Kalina.
Monday 19 August 2013
http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/seventh-body-recovered-from-ins-sindhurakshak/article5038510.ece?homepage=true
http://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/1876412/report-ins-sindhurakshak-disaster-dental-tests-on-to-identify-recovered-bodies-of-sailors
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