MH17 Crash Search Hampered by Fighting - to Resume 'Soon'

Search efforts at the MH17 crash site should resume "soon" after being hampered by fighting in the eastern Ukraine region where the Malaysia Airlines plane was shot down.

Fighting between pro-Kremlin militia and the Ukraine military has prevented the search for four days, but there are hopes it will soon be resumed, according to reports about the search effort. It is being headed by Dutch recovery specialist Pieter-Jaap Aalbersberg.

The announcement at a press briefing came as 42 more bodies of the victims on board MH17 were officially identified.

It brings the figure of identified bodies up to 65, meaning there are still more than 200 families yet to be reunited with the remains of their loved ones.

The justice ministry in the Netherlands said more bodies may be identified soon with a stream of DNA results beginning to emerge from pathology laboratories.

Among the dead were 196 Dutch nationals and the Netherlands has been co-ordinating the search for the crash site.