Counseling provided to families of flight accident victims

Experts are paying close attention to the psychological status of family members of victims of Flight MU5735 and have offered help to 357 family members, a leading expert said on Sunday.

At present, 99 psychological experts are working in Wuzhou, Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, where the plane crashed on Monday. They are divided into 12 teams, with 11 stationed in hotels accommodating victims' family members and one at the crash site, according to Yin Ping, a psychological expert.

"There is a special team with two experts for each of the families, offering psychological counseling services all the way through," he said. By Sunday at noon, experts had given professional counseling 1,611 times.

Flight MU5735, with 132 people onboard, departed from the southwestern city of Kunming at around 1 pm on Monday for Guangzhou. It crashed in a mountainous area in Wuzhou, Guangxi, at 2:21 pm. All people were confirmed dead on Saturday night.

The search and rescue command center held a mourning ceremony on the crash site on Sunday, with the participation of some family members.

Yin said offering psychological counseling to victims' family members is one of the key tasks after the tragedy occurred and the work started on Monday evening.

He said some family members have left Wuzhou after paying tribute on-site, but the psychological services will continue.

"It's been seven days. As many family members have started to accept the reality they have lost their next of kin, they've shown obvious sorrow," Yin said.

Their mood needs to be understood and accepted. They also need people to accompany them and help them cope, he said.