T

hree unidentified bodies and a body part from the sunken KM Teratai Prima ship were buried Wednesday as no relatives claimed them and their condition deteriorated.

No relatives recognized the bodies going into Tuesday evening when the search and rescue efforts for the passenger ship that sunk in the Majene waters, West Sulawesi were called off.

The bodies were buried at the Bilalang cemetery in Bacukiki district, Pare-pare, South Sulawesi, and were put in a single hole measuring 10-meters by 2-meters.

Head of the disaster victim identification (DVI) team, Mauluddin, confirmed Wednesday that the decision was taken because the bodies were already decomposing and the team had taken all the necessary identification data.

"The identification process had been done and the bodies were decomposing so we decided to bury them."

However, Mauluddin said that if there was anyone who still wanted to claim to be the next of kin, the identification process could still be done as long as the claimant brought supporting data to be compared with those collected by the DVI team.

After the SAR command post in Pare-pare was closed, the DVI team moved to the medical department of the South Sulawesi Provincial Police at the Andi Mappaoddang Police Hospital in Makassar as well as to the National Police's DVI office.

All relatives of passengers of the ship which sunk on Jan. 11 have returned to their homes after the SAR effort was called off.

The relatives, who flocked to the SAR command posts in Majene and Pare-Pare, returned home from Tuesday evening until Wednesday morning.

The ill-fated ship departed from Pare-pare heading to Samarinda in East Kalimantan.

SAR mission coordinator, Col. Jaka Santosa, said officially the SAR efforts had been called off, however, four Navy warships were still conducting operations in the Majene and Pare-pare waters.

The warships are KRI Pulau Rupat, KRI Kakap, KRI Untung Suropati and KRI Slamet Riyadi.

Jaka, also the assistant on intelligence affairs to the Makassar Main Naval Base, said the passengers on board totalled 306 people including crew. The ship's records indicated 250 passengers and 17 crew.

Jaka said the record of 306 passengers was acquired based on reports filed by passengers' relatives.

"Until the last day of the SAR operation, there were 289 people filing reports for 172 people listed in the passenger list and 117 not on the list," he said.