FAMILIES of the three Hong Kong victims of China's worst reported air crash waited for the whole day yesterday and were still unable to identify the bodies of their family members.
Instead, they were given pictures of the bodies and Chinese officials would only give them vague promises that they might be able to carry out the identification late at night.
The families complained about the inefficiency of airline officials in handling the aftermath of the accident, which killed 160 people on Monday when a Tupolev TU-154 crashed soon after taking off from Xian on a regular flight to Guangzhou.
''They have not asked us [for identifying photos] when we arrived Tuesday night, or on the second day when we were here. They said they would take us to identify the bodies yesterday and asked us to wait,'' said the sister of 35-year-old Hong Kong victim Lau Chi-Cheung.
The sister of another of the dead said: ''We started waiting yesterday at about 9 am. And it was only at 2 pm that they [officials from the China Northwest Airlines] asked us to provide them with photos and characteristics [of the deceased].'' They had been unable to identify the bodies themselves.
A brother of victim Chu Yin-ming echoed Ms Lau's complaint, saying that ''they only do one thing a day''.