CRI听力:342 Bodies on Capsized Ship Identified, Compensation Underway

The bodies of 342 of the 434 people confirmed dead have been positively identified through DNA analysis.

Around 170 medical experts and technicians were organized to speed up the process.

Zhou Xujin, the head of the forensic science department with the Hubei Public Security Bureau, says making the DNA matches hasn't been an easy process.

"The DNA matching process for the unidentified bodies is being hindered by many difficulties. For example, sometimes we can only find one of the victims' parents or children. Some of the relatives of the victims are living in different areas, and aren't able to arrive for quite some time. And in some situations, the victims don't have immediate family members."

Meantime, relatives are being allowed to retrieve the belongings of their loved-ones which have been recovered.

Liu Qiang with Jianli County's public security bureau says 323 items have been identified.

"We have found rings, earrings, ID cards and tickets among the list of the items being registered by the coroners. They are all marked carefully with numbers. We have to do this work well, because it means so much to the relatives and the victims."

With the identities of the victims being determined, compensation work is also getting underway.

The China Insurance Regulatory Commission says its expected the total payouts will be around 90-million yuan.

Huang Hong, vice president of CIRC, says the companies involved in paying-out the insurance need to deal with the claims with sensitivity.

"In our next step of dealing with insurance claims, we have three principles. The first is to protect people's interests and think more about the people themselves. Secondly, we have to adhere to the terms of the insurance contract, and be honest and credible in the compensation process. The insurance companies can't delay or avoid paying out claims. The third is to be people-oriented. Insurers need to focus on paying out life-insurance claims, and then move on to dealing with personal property claims. They need to solve simple problems first and then deal with more complicated issues."

Meanwhile, the State Council, China's Cabinet, has assembled a 60-member team to investigate the circumstances behind the disaster.

The team is being led by the head of the State Administration of Work Safety.

A focus will be on the ship itself, as well as the weather conditions at the time of the capsizing.

Questions as to why the captain of the vessel didn't anchor the ship following broadcasts of impending bad weather are also to be investigated.

Video footage and other evidence have already been collected from the ship.

Meanwhile, searchers have had no luck yet locating the 8 people still listed as missing.

Of the 456 people on the river cruise at the time, only 14 people are known to have survived.

For CRI, I'm Xie Cheng.