CRI听力:Vigil Held for AirAsia Victims; Post-mortems Underway

New Year celebrations in Indonesia have been tempered by sorrow over the loss of the AirAsia plane with 162 people on board, most of them Indonesians.

A vigil was held in Surabaya where the plane took off.

Hundreds of residents and relatives of those on board lit candles and observed a minute's silence for the victims.

All New Year's Eve celebrations in East Java province were cancelled.

In Jakarta, the capital, residents began New Year festivities with a prayer for the victims.

"I'm quite sad because as we know some of our brothers and sisters are in mourning. I hope the families left behind can stay strong, and hopefully they can find all of the victims as soon as possible."

A number of other cities cancelled or scaled down their new year celebrations.

Earlier Wednesday, the first two bodies from the crash, a woman and a boy, were flown back to Surabaya for identification.

Budiyono Mars is the East Java police chief.

"We don't have any target of how many, how much, how fast the examination, but we are doing the best. The success of the examination not depends on the faster but depends on the accuracy of the process of this identification."

So far seven bodies have been retrieved, but weather conditions have hindered further salvage efforts.

Some of the bodies were fully clothed, which could indicate the Airbus A320 was intact when it hit the water.

Indonesian officials believe they have found the plane's wreck on the ocean floor after sonar detected a large, dark object beneath waters where debris and bodies were floating.