Psychiatrists to prepare relatives of victims of plane crash

Russian psychiatrists have begun to prepare relatives of over 200 victims who died in yesterday's air crash in Egypt for the daunting identification process of charred bodies, which will soon be delivered to the grief- stricken kin.
Psychiatrists and security officials in St. Petersburg have interviewed 137 people who were relatives of the passengers who died in the air crash in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula that killed all 224 people on board the Russian plane, St.Petersburg Vice-Governor Igor Albin said.
Albin said bodies of all victims would be delivered to St.Petersburg within 24 hours.
"Until that time, we will be preparing relatives for the identification. The reaction during the identification may be quite different. It is important for the relatives to have a psychological opportunity to talk with investigators before the identification," chief psychiatrist of the Russian Ministry of Health Zurab Kekelidze was quoted as saying by the state-run TASS news agency.

He further said that relatives of the victims continue to arrive in St.Petersburg airport and they are accommodated free of charge.
The first aircraft carrying passengers' bodies may arrive in St.Petersburg later today.

Flight 9268, carrying Russian tourists home on board an Airbus A321 aircraft, crashed yesterday morning 30 minutes after taking off from the resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, near the southern tip of the Sinai, on a flight to St. Petersburg.
The plane wreckage was spotted in the north of the Sinai Peninsula, some 100 kilometers south of the city of El-Arish.
There were 217 passengers and seven crew members on board, most of them were Russian nationals.