Chiara Natasha's entire family was coming to visit for New Year's.
The petite, dark-haired 15-year-old had just moved to Singapore in November to study at a Methodist girls' school on a government scholarship. Her parents and two brothers had promised to join her to celebrate the holiday and help her settle into dormitory life.
But instead of greeting her relatives at the airport, she returned home Sunday to Surabaya, Indonesia, to seek any word about the fate of AirAsia Flight 8501, praying that they had somehow survived.
Families who lost loved ones aboard the jetliner endured another excruciating day of waiting on Wednesday as bad weather hindered efforts to recover any more bodies and sent wreckage drifting far from the crash site.
"Help us, God, to move forward, even though we are surrounded by darkness," the Reverend Philip Mantofa, whose church lost about 40 members in the disaster, told families gathered in a waiting room at the Surabaya airport.
The search for 162 people who vanished on Sunday aboard the Airbus A320 was severely limited by heavy rain, wind and thick clouds over the Java Sea.
Items recovered so far include a life jacket, an emergency exit window, children's shoes, a blue suitcase and backpacks filled with food.
Simple wooden coffins - numbered 001 and 002 - with purple flowers on top contained the first two bodies, which were sent from Pangkalan Bun to Surabaya for autopsies. The two victims were a woman wearing blue jeans and a boy. The other five bodies - three male and two female - will remain on a warship until the weather clears.
Many family members had planned to travel to Pangkalan Bun, 160 kilometres from the area where bodies were first spotted, to start identifying their loved ones. However, the manager of the Surabaya airport, Trikora Hardjo, later said the trip was cancelled after authorities suggested their presence could slow down the operation.
Instead, some relatives gave blood for DNA tests and submitted photos of their loved ones along with identifying information such as tattoos or birthmarks that could help make the process easier.
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