Czech victims of plane crash preliminarily identified

In related news, the Czech embassy in Moscow received preliminary confirmation from Russian authorities that the bodies of Czech ice hockey stars Karel Rachůnek and Jan Marek had been identified on Thursday. The two, along with the Czech hockey star Josef Vašíček, were among the victims of Wednesday’s crash of a Yak-42 plane in which 43 people were killed. The Czech embassy is working to ensure that the bodies of the Czech crash victims be returned to the country as quickly as possible. According to Russian media, emergency response teams have been working at the site of the crash to identify the victims’ bodies; in roughly half of the cases, victims’ identities were confirmed.