Medical officials in India on Sunday said that the intense fire from the crash of Air India Flight 171 has made identifying the victims’ remains extremely difficult.

Meanwhile, anguished relatives of over 200 passengers continued their vigil outside a mortuary for a third consecutive day.

The Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, which was en route from Ahmedabad to Gatwick Airport near London, had been loaded with approximately 125,000 litres or over 33,000 gallons of fuel for the nearly 10-hour journey when it went down on Thursday.

Senior health officials in Ahmedabad informed a visiting delegation on Saturday that preliminary assessments showed temperatures at the crash site had soared to around 1,500 degrees Celsius (2,700 degrees Fahrenheit), according to two attendees.

Such extreme heat is enough to completely incinerate human remains.

H.P. Sanghvi, the head of the forensic laboratory receiving most of the DNA samples, told local media that the condition of the remains has made both sample collection and testing extremely challenging.

“These high temperatures degrade DNA in multiple parts of the body,” Sanghvi explained. “It makes the identification process highly complicated.”

By Sunday evening, only 35 of the 270 confirmed victims both passengers and individuals on the ground had been formally identified and handed over to their families.

Eight of the deceased, mostly from the medical school campus where the aircraft crashed, were identified and released on Friday.

Additional handovers began on Saturday evening as DNA matches were confirmed.

Among those identified through DNA analysis by Sunday afternoon was Vijay Rupani, the former chief minister of Gujarat, according to Gujarat Home Minister Harsh Sanghavi.

Due to the condition of the bodies, security was tight during the release process. Some families reported being instructed not to open the coffins and to proceed quickly with funerals or cremations.

Remarkably, only one person among the 242 onboard survived the crash, escaping against all odds.