DHAKA: Dutch police on Saturday sent teams to visit relatives of those killed in the Malaysia Airlines crash in Ukraine to collect DNA and other data to help identify the dead.

‘We sent out 80 investigators this morning, working in pairs, to visit 40 addresses,’ national police forensics spokesman Ad Kraszewski told media, reports The Straits Times.

Over the next few days, police will visit relatives of the 192 Dutch nationals killed in Thursday’s crash over a rebel-held area of Ukraine.

A total of 298 people died in the disaster.

The police teams will serve as a contact point for relatives to ask questions about the long identification process and provide updates ‘until a body is back in the Netherlands and handed over to the family’, Kraszewski said.

BDST: 2039 HRS, JUL 19, 2014