Russian disaster relief team to meet VP: Spokesman

JAKARTA. Members of the Russian delegation that will help the country’s investigation into the crash of the Sukhoi Superjet 100 are slated to meet Vice President Boediono in his office at around 2:30 p.m. on Monday, a spokesman says.

Vice presidential spokesman Yopie Hidayat confirmed the meeting was scheduled for Monday afternoon, but declined to give details.

Russia’s search and rescue team and is assisting the National Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas) in both evacuating and identifying the remains of the Sukhoi’s victims.

On Saturday, two Ilyushin IL-76TD cargo planes carrying the team’s members and special disaster relief equipment arrived at the Halim Perdanakusuma Airport in East Jakarta.

The team comprises 68 personnel including rescue and missions specialists and psychologists for the victims’ relatives.

The planes also brought disaster relief equipment including a BO-105 helicopter and a BK-117 helicopter.

The helicopters arrived on Monday at the search and rescue command post in Cijeruk, West Java to assist with the recovery of victims’ remains.

Russia’s leading DNA expert, Pavel Ivanov, is also slated to arrive in Jakarta on Tuesday to help the National Police’s Disaster Victim Identification (DVI) unit in identifying the victims.

Ivanov is a Russian geneticist from the Engelhardt Institute of Molecular Biology at the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow, and is one of the experts who examined the remains of Russia’s slain royal family Romanov through DNA analysis.(The Jakarta Post)