Firefighters have so far managed to save only 12 of the 61 people killed in the plane crash in Brazil.

By 8:00 a.m. Saturday (12:00 p.m. in Lisbon), rescue teams made up of firefighters and civil protection agents from the Brazilian state of Sao Paulo had only managed to clear away the wreckage of the plane that crashed during the day on Friday in the city of Vinhedo, 70 km from the capital Sao Paulo, where 12 of the 61 confirmed fatalities were recorded.

According to Fire Captain Maicon Cristo, the state in which the bodies were left after the tragedy required very delicate and laborious work on the part of the rescue team, and it is expected that the removal of all the victims, including the Portuguese, will not be completed until this Sunday or even Monday.

The bodies were “severely damaged” by the plane’s violent impact with the ground and the intense fire that followed the crash, the official said.

Firefighters began the rescue operation from the cockpit, at the front of the remaining part of the aircraft, a twin-engine ATR 72-500 of the regional airline Voepass (formerly Passaredo), and slowly moved towards the tail, given the state of fragmentation.

Also, according to a spokesman for the firefighters, who in Brazil are a branch of the military police of each state, soldiers have not stopped for a minute since the accident, which occurred at 13:21 local time on Friday, maintaining rescue operations to help victims even at night with the help of artificial lighting.

But, he stressed, the job would now become even more difficult and complex as firefighters worked their way into the middle of the plane and beyond, where the worst damage had been done both by the brutal impact and by the flames that quickly took over.

Relatives of the 57 passengers and four crew members have already begun arriving in the city of Sao Paulo, 70 km from Vinhedo, where the plane crashed, and will be divided into two groups and accommodated in hotels in two cities proposed by the Sao Paulo government.

Some of the family members will remain in São Paulo, where the bodies will be taken to perform autopsies and identifications, provide photographs, information, reports or images of medical and dental examinations that will help identify the people they lost, and others will be taken to Vinhedo, if you like, to follow the rescue more closely.

A joint team of doctors and forensic experts has been assembled at IML, the Sao Paulo Institute of Forensic Medicine, to receive and identify the bodies. This is another effort that also has no end date. Fire and civil defense sources in Vinhedo said that most of the victims can only be identified through DNA testing.

The Voepass plane took off from the city of Cascavel in the state of Parana, heading to Guarulhos airport in Sao Paulo, a journey of just over 945 km, and crashed in the rural area of ​​Vinhedo, 70 km or less from its destination, for unknown reasons.

The ATR, built 14 years ago in France and operated in Brazil for only two years, was making a completely peaceful flight when suddenly, flying over Vinhedo, it made a sharp turn and rolled at high speed for almost four kilometers in just one minute and crashed into a recreational lawn inside a condominium of country houses in the Canela area, one kilometer from the city center, narrowly missing the surrounding houses, which were inhabited and whose residents fled in panic when they realized that the plane was going to crash.