Early Thursday morning, what is thought to be the final body from the Meco tragedy was found on beach in Almada and taken straight to the local Hospital Garcia de Orta for identification. The family of missing student Pedro Negrão was immediately informed, as this is the last student swept into the sea by a freak wave on Deceber 15 who remains unaccounted for. Like all the bodies washed up on beaches over last weekend and Monday, this one was unrecognisable and had to be identified through the use of DNA. Jorge Costa Santos of the Institute of Legal Medicine explained that normally this would take his department over two weeks – but in this case, everyone worked double-time, using the help of family members to narrow down possibilities.
“We asked relatives for a list of things like piercings, tattoos, anatomical alterations, that would allow us to identify the bodies”, he told Público newspaper.
Confirmation “with no margin for doubt” was then followed up by the PJ’s scientific police laboratory, using fingerprints.
This Christmas has been a sadly busy one for the institute of Legal Medicine ias it also had to identify bodies of Portuguese nationals killed in a plane crash in Mozambique.
