Grieving families crowded a hospital in western India's Ahmedabad on Friday, offering blood samples for DNA testing while medical workers labored to identify victims of a devastating plane crash that claimed at least 265 lives.
The London-bound Boeing 787-8 aircraft, carrying 242 people, crashed earlier on Thursday shortly after it took off from the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport in Ahmedabad, about 17 kilometers south of Gandhinagar, the capital city of Gujarat.
According to the latest media reports, a total of 265 dead bodies had already been brought to a local government hospital in Ahmedabad city.
Among the dead, 241 were passengers aboard the ill-fated Boeing aircraft, while the remaining casualties occurred on the ground.
Friday’s footage revealed heartbroken relatives anxiously gathered outside Ahmedabad Civil Hospital, as ambulances transported bodies from the nearby plane crash site.
Inside the hospital, medical workers collected blood samples, preparing them for DNA testing to identify the recovered bodies. The black box of the 12-year-old Boeing 787-8, flight AI171, was recovered Thursday night. Preliminary data suggests the plane failed to achieve a normal takeoff, possibly due to a malfunction in its landing gear system.
Air India, operator of the ill-fated aircraft, expressed its deepest condolences to the families of the victims and assured full cooperation with authorities in the ongoing crash investigation.
Grieving relatives crowd hospital for DNA identification after fatal India plane crash
China's smart consumer device manufacturing sector has seen rapid growth this year, fueled by a government-backed trade-in program and the expansion of diversified consumption scenarios.
From January to May, the country's electronic information manufacturing industry maintained strong momentum, with total revenue of enterprises above the designated size reaching 6.49 trillion yuan (some 900 billion U.S. dollars), up 9.4 percent year on year.
Production of electronic consumer goods recorded steady increases. Over 140 million computers were produced during the period, up 8 percent from a year earlier, while 14.04 million television units rolled off assembly lines, up 1.7 percent year on year.
"Consumption scenarios are becoming more diversified. On the demand side, new smart products are quickly entering the market, opening up emerging markets in home services, health management, and beyond. On the supply side, the industry is clearly moving toward transformation and upgrading, with new growth drivers accelerating," said Zuo Kairui, director of the Industry Development Department of the Institute of Policy and Economics at the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology.
Looking ahead to the second half of the year, China plans to go on promoting its "AI plus consumer goods" initiative, encouraging the development and application of new technologies such as smart wearables, ultra-high-definition video, brain-computer interfaces, and robotics.
Meanwhile, authorities will continue to foster high-growth consumer sectors and guide the smart device industry toward greener, more service-oriented development.
China's smart consumer device industry sees rapid growth amid policy boost
