The coroner charged with identifying the victims of the London bombings said some families may have to wait weeks to find out whether their relatives are among the dead.
Andrew Reid, the coroner for inner London north, made the statement during a briefing to journalists on Wednesday after eight more victims were named by the police, bringing the total formally identified among the estimated 52 deaths to 11.
Reid said the scale and difficulty of the task facing recovery teams working at the four bomb sites, and the dozens of pathologists, forensic dentists, radiographers and police officers helping to identify people meant delays were inevitable.
PHOTO: AP
"In some cases where there are no fingerprints or dental records we might have to rely on DNA. In the worst case, for some victims, it might take weeks," he said.
Inquests into the deaths of six people were opened on Wednesday. Inquests were due to open yesterday into the deaths of two more people.
Reid said he understood the frustration of those families still waiting for confirmation but added: "We need to eliminate the possibility that we ever return the wrong victim to the wrong family."
Family members would be permitted to view their relatives. He said the bodies of the bombers would be treated in exactly the same way as those of the victims.
The best hope for accurate identification is understood to be dental records, fingerprints and unique medical devices used by the victims. Such information was used to identify all of those named so far.
The use of secondary criteria such as credit cards and driving licenses carries the risk of mistakes because photographs may be out of date or wallets placed with the wrong body.
A source at the coroner's office said investigators initially presumed an identity for one victim on the basis of a photograph which was later disproved by dental records.
Meanwhile, the northern city of Leeds is trying to come to terms with the "new reality" of being seen as the cradle of Britain's first suicide bombers.
There is a feeling of unease, anger and shock in the city of 2 million, as children continue to play in the narrow streets of Beeston, the suburb where many resident knew the bombers.
Tension is high, and the air full of talk of fanatics, suicide bombers and the threat to British society, said a BBC report.
"One way ticket to slaughter" screamed an accusing headline in the Yorkshire Evening Post.
But a poster at a Unitarian chapel declared calmly: "Called by different names, worshipped in different ways; there is but one God."
"This is one of the most deprived areas of the country, there are many, many problems with jobs, education and so on," Councillor Mohammed Iqbal said.
"There are young people from all backgrounds and communities who are looking for reasons to do something wrong because they have nothing else to do," he said.
But, clearly struggling to come to terms with what has happened, the councillor was quick to say that his words must not be construed to become an explanation, let alone an excuse for the atrocities.
"I wish I knew," he said in answer to the question of why four young British-born Moslems would turn themselves into bombs. "We as a Moslem community need to take a role in dealing with this."
A young Pakistani man working in a corner shop told the BBC he knew two of the four suspects, but added nothing could have prepared him for what they had apparently done.
However, he added, there was something that needed to be addressed: Moslem leaders, he said, were "simply not listening to the young."
"Extremists don't walk into mosques and say `Excuse me, would you like to join me in blowing up London?' It just doesn't work that way," the man said.
"But the older generations and the younger ones just don't talk to each other," he said. "There's a language barrier -- the kids speak English, the elders not -- and then there are huge cultural barriers."
A social worker believed the reasons for alienation of the young were even more complex.
He had experienced a "growing victim culture" among young Moslem men, linked to an international Islamic political scene that emphasized the suffering of Palestinians, Kashmiris and so on.
"These kids, whoever they are, want to create their own identities, but are being told they are Moslem, white, black or whatever,"he said.
"The majority of the lads just want to be British but ever since 9/11 they've been pushed back time and time again into a Moslem identity," he said.
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