Russian and Polish investigators today struggled to identify the remains of nearly 100 people killed in the weekend plane crash in which Poland's president and many other top officials perished.
President Lech Kaczynski's coffin returned home yesterday to a Warsaw plunged into deep mourning and awash with flowers, candles and red and white national flags, but the remains of the 95 other victims were sent to Moscow for identification.
The body of Poland's first lady, Maria Kaczynska, has been identified and may be brought to Poland tomorrow, an official at the Polish president's chancellery said today.
Mr Kaczynski's ageing Polish government Tupolev plane crashed in thick fog near Smolensk airport in western Russia on Saturday, reportedly after the pilot ignored traffic controllers' advice not to land.
Poland's chief prosecutor insisted today there was no evidence at present to suggest the pilot of the doomed plane had been pressured to attempt to land. There has been speculation in some media that Mr Kaczynski himself urged the pilot to land.
Asked whether the pilot had come under pressure, Andrzej Seremet told a news conference: "At the current level of the investigation, there is no such information."
In Moscow, Russia's health minister Tatyana Golikova said the process of identifying all the bodies would take two to three days. Her Polish counterpart Ewa Kopacz, visiting Moscow, said: "It's not an easy procedure. In many cases it's only possible to identify the dead with the help of genetic expertise."
Ms Kopacz also expressed gratitude to the Russian authorities for their professionalism and their collaborative approach.
While the deaths of military leaders and leading opposition figures are a huge blow to the political and military elite, the crash poses no threat to political and economic stability in Poland, a country of 38 million people firmly anchored in the European Union and the US-led Nato alliance.
Financial markets largely shrugged off the crash today, with the zloty currency and stocks flat or slightly firmer. They were awaiting a decision on who would replace Slawomir Skrzypek, the governor of the Polish central bank who was also killed.
Acting president Bronislaw Komorowski said today he would act quickly to name a new governor. Mr Komorowski also said he would review the rules governing travel for top military personnel. The head of the National Security Bureau, which reports to the president, was among those killed in Saturday's crash.
In Poland, the government, not the president, decides policy, though the head of state can veto laws. From the government, only three deputy ministers were on the plane.
The crash has also shocked Russia, which declared today a day of mourning. Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin's decision to personally see off Mr Kaczynski's coffin from Smolensk made a good impression on Poles.
Mr Kaczynski and his entourage had been planning to mark the 70th anniversary of the massacre of Polish officers by the Soviet NKVD secret police in the nearby Katyn forest.
Poland has declared a week of mourning. Mr Kaczynski's coffin, greeted in silence by tens of thousands of people lining its route from Warsaw's military airport to the presidential palace yesterday, will be available for public viewing from tomorrow.
Millions of mourners across staunchly Roman Catholic Poland packed into churches yesterday to pray for the dead. Houses, shops and businesses were decorated with Polish flags.
"I am proud of how the nation reacted, it is something to be proud of, but we also have to be responsible and prudent," said Lech Walesa, Poland's former president and onetime leader of the Solidarity movement that overthrew communism in 1989. "We have to ask ourselves why this happened. It's not about arguing or placing blame on anyone, but we have to draw conclusions, lessons for the future," Mr Walesa told Polish TV.
Mr Kaczynski, a combative nationalist known for his distrust of both the EU and of Russia, belonged to Solidarity in the 1980s but later quarrelled with Walesa.
Mr Kaczynski and his identical twin brother Jaroslaw, a former prime minister, had led opposition to Prime Minister Donald Tusk's pro-market reform government and its efforts to take Poland into the euro as soon as possible.
Reuters