Investigators comb MH17 wreckage for remaining 79 bodies

Australian and Dutch investigators have finally begun the grisly task of gathering the remaining bodies and belongings left at the MH17 crash site in eastern Ukraine.

After being repeatedly turned back by artillery fire and pro-Russian rebel checkpoints, the international team has reached the site after as tense two weeks and one day of waiting.

They will now begin the careful search of the site hoping to recover the remains of the 79 passengers and crew still unaccounted for.

The investigators paused before starting work for a brief moment of silence before deploying in four groups to search among the rubble and debris of the downed flight.

“On this field of remembrance… there is a lot of grief attached to this place,” Dutch Federal Police’s Colonel Cornelis Kuijs said.