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GV Ext. Morgue. Buddhist priest arrives and shakes hands with gendarme
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CU Medical Institute sign zoom out to GV entrance
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SV Pan Buddhist Priest with case walking towards entrance with attnedants
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GV Entrance
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MV Zoom out to GV of Priest and attnedants
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BUDDHIST PRIEST ARRIVING AT MORGUE AND SHAKING HANDS WITH GENDARME: MEDICAL INSTITUTE SIGN AND ENTRANCE: BUDDHIST PRIEST AND ATTENDANTS WALKING TOWARDS ENTRANCE: PRIEST AND ATTENDANT AT ENTRANCE.




Initials 311/DHB



Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved

Background: As the international team of experts continued their difficult task of trying to discover the cause of last Sunday's Paris air crash, a Buddhist priest, Taisen Sesimaru, accompanied by tow followers, visited the Paris morgue on Thursday (7 March) where the bodies of many of the victims are being held. Of the 345 people killed in the disaster - the worst in aviation history - forty-nine of the victims were Japanese.

On Wednesday (6 March) Mr. Sesimaru had conducted a Zen Buddhist memorial service for the Japanese dead at the scene of the disaster in the forest of Ermenonville. The simple service was attended by 150 relatives who had flown half way across the world to be present.

Even four days after the crash of the Turkish DC-10 airliner, it is still proving difficult to identify the remains of the victims. It is believed that about two hundred of them were British, but British officials at the scene are still unable to give an exact number.

The French authorities have appealed to relatives of victims to be patient and not to contact them until asked to do so by their country's consulate.