CARACAS, Aug. 17 (Xinhuanet) -- Head of Venezuelan Civil Protection, Colonel Antonio Rivero, said 95 percent of the bodies of the 160 passengers on board the Colombian airliner that crashed last Tuesday in western Venezuela have been found.

    "According to our estimates we have already found about 95 percent of the bodies. Two or three bodies can be seen in rugged terrain, but we hope we will solve this by tomorrow," Rivero said.

    Rivero said that by Wednesday evening the identification operation will begin in cooperation with aviation authorities fromFrance and Colombia.

    The airplane, a twin-engine MD-82 on route from Panama to the French island of Martinique, had trouble with its engines and crashed at a speed of 7,000 feet per minute between two haciendas in the area.

    The airline, West Caribbean Airways, said last Tuesday in Bogota that the airplane with 152 passengers, one child and eight crew members on board, declared an emergency at about 20 miles from the Colombian-Venezuelan border.

    This is West Caribbean Airways' second crash since last March when a twin-engine airplane crash killed eight people in the Colombian island of Vieja Providencia. Enditem

French FM: identification of victims in Venezuela crash difficult

    PARIS, Aug. 17 (Xinhuanet) -- French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy on Wednesday told journalists that it was a difficult task to identify the victims in the Colombian jetliner crash in western Venezuela.

    "The conditions in which we are recovering the remains signify a difficult task in recognizing and especially a difficult task inidentifying the victims," he said.

    Douste-Blazy said around 60 bodies had been transferred to a morgue in the nearby Venezuelan city of Maracaibo.

    "Given the conditions in which the accident occurred and the state in which the remains were found, the identification process will probably take some time," he said.

    Fifteen experts were sent to the French Caribbean island of Martinique to gather samples and information from the families of those killed, he said.

    He added that France would provide support for the relatives and"provide for a trip to Venezuela for those who wish to go."

    According to Douste-Blazy's office, the foreign minister is expected to accompany a group of victims' families to Venezuela inthe coming days.

    All 152 French passengers and eight Colombian crew members diedwhen a West Caribbean Airways jet McDonnell Douglas MD-82 crashed Tuesday near Venezuela's border with Colombia, said sources with France's civil aviation authority. Enditem