A senior official of the Gunma prefectural police recounted his experience as a rookie officer tasked with identifying remains from the 1985 crash of a Japan Airlines jumbo jet, recalling that he wanted to return the bodies to bereaved families as swiftly as possible.
Hideji Kenjo, now 60, was stationed at a police box in Gunma Prefecture at the time of the accident on Aug. 12, 1985, which claimed 520 lives. He dealt with bodies brought in from the mountainous crash site to a gymnasium in the city of Fujioka that served as a morgue from the day after the accident. The jet crashed on the Osutaka Ridge in the village of Ueno, Gunma.
At the gymnasium, in sweltering heat, in which even large blocks of ice melted quickly, bereaved families expressed their anger toward Japan Airlines employees, according to Kenjo.
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