ROSTOV-ON-DON. Aug 28 (Interfax-AVN) - The Defense Ministry 124th forensic medical laboratory located in the city of Rostov- on-Don identified 67 servicemen who died in a MI-26 Halo helicopter crash in Chechnya, the laboratory's deputy chief Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Tikhonov said on Wednesday.
According to him, "all fragments of the servicemen's bodies found at the crash site were delivered to the laboratory. Even the ground at the site was floured."
"The most serious aid was provided by relatives of the dead servicemen, who supplied various information to the laboratory including data from old medical examinations of the servicemen that might be useful in the current identification," Tikhonov stressed.
"Unfortunately it is still impossible to find out if we have remains of all 118 servicemen. Many bodies burnt beyond recognition and some of them remains only in the form of fragments," Tikhonov added.