SAO JORGE, Azores Islands -- Slipping in mud and clinging to rocks on a steep escarpment, emergency teams combed a mist-shrouded mountainside Sunday to recover the bodies of 35 people killed when a twin-engine plane crashed a day before.
More than 100 workers wearing orange and blue waterproof clothing to protect against the stinging rain lifted out 21 dark green body bags and carried them hundreds of yards uphill to waiting ambulances.They had already recovered six bodies before nightfall on Saturday.
The search through the isolated area began at dawn and was expected to last all day, said Dionisio Silveira of the local Civil Protection Service, adding that the wet earth was dangerous. "We fear for the safety of our men," Silveira said.
There was a strong odor of jet fuel around the wreckage. The teams, working in almost complete silence, picked carefully through the scattered debris. Part of a wing jutted out of the ground, near a wheel and an engine.
Antonio Cunha, an emergency team official at the site, said the bodies were strewn across a wide area.
The crash site, about 3,300 feet up a steep mountain, was inaccessible to vehicles and visibility was less than 20 yards.
"Collecting the bodies is going quite well, considering the conditions here. It's a very tough area," Cunha said.
The bodies were taken to a medical center for autopsies. Luis Arruda, one of the forensic experts carrying out the autopsies, said only 12 bodies had so far been identified.
"They are very damaged. Most are unrecognizable," Arruda said.
He said some bodies had been kept in the refrigerated warehouse of a local company overnight because the morgue could not hold them all.
The ATP turboprop slammed into a peak on Sao Jorge island, one of the nine Azores islands about 900 miles west of mainland Portugal, early Saturday.
The plane was flying from Ponta Delgada on Sao Miguel to Horta, on the island of Faial, about 155 miles to the west.
The airline, SATA Air Azores, published the names of the 31 passengers and four crew and posted the list on its Web site. All were Portuguese except for a married couple from Guinea-Bissau who lived on the archipelago.