JAKARTA, Nov. 5 (Xinhua) -- The families of the victims from Indonesia's crashed plane on Monday rejected a flower scattering ceremony at the crash site and demanded a quicker process to identify their loved ones.
Lion Air JT 610, which used brand new Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft, enroute to Pangkalpinang from Banten province's airport of Soekarno-Hatta crashed in West Java province's waters off Karawang regency shore shortly after taking off a week ago.
"We reject the flower scattering ceremony. We are still hoping that our relatives can be identified," a representative of the families said at a meeting with government ministers and officials.
The proposed flower scattering ceremony at the crash site on Tuesday was announced earlier on Monday.
A spokesman from the Indonesian navy said that they had prepared two navy vessels KRI Banjarmasin and KRI Banda Aceh for the purpose.
The representative of the families also demanded additional personnel to identify the body parts recovered by the rescue and search team so as to speed up the process.
"We have been here in the last 7 days, but so far only 14 bodies have been identified," the representative said.
The Disaster Victim Identification (DVI) unit from the Indonesian police had managed to identify 14 out of the 189 victims aboard the plane as of Sunday. One of the identified victim was the flight attendant.
The Lion Air management has pledged to provide compensation up to 1.3 billion rupiah (about 86,800 U.S. dollars) for each of the victims in the tragedy. The compensation will be delivered after the identification process is completed.
Responding to the demand of the families of the victims, Indonesian Transportation Minister Budi Karya Sumadi said the flower scattering ceremony would be skipped but would hold a ceremony to pray for those who were killed in the crash.
Indonesian authorities have extended the search period to three more days after the initial seven day period which ended on Sunday.
