The National:

IN Ethiopia, thousands have attended a mass funeral ceremony in the country’s capital, a week after a plane crash killed 157 people.

Seventeen empty caskets were laid to rest in remembrance of the victims from Ethiopia.

The victims came from 35 countries. Officials have begun delivering bags of earth to family members instead of the remains because the identification process is going to take such a long time.

Many families have held religious ceremonies and relatives have gathered at the rural, dusty crash site outside Ethiopia’s capital. Earlier, it emerged families are being given a 1kg sack of scorched earth taken from the crash sites. “The soil came as it became impossible to identify bodies and hand over remains,” a family member said. “We will not rest until we are given the real body or body parts of our loved ones.”

RELATIVES are anxiously waiting for authorities to release the remains of those who were killed in massacres at two mosques in the New Zealand city of Christchurch, while authorities announced the death toll from the attacks had risen to 50. Islamic law calls for bodies to be cleansed and buried as soon as possible after death, usually within 24 hours.

Police Commissioner Mike Bush said police were working with pathologists and coroners to release the bodies as soon as they could.

“We are so aware of the cultural and religious needs. So we are doing that as quickly and as sensitively as possible,” he said.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said a small number of bodies would start being released to families on Sunday evening.

IN Indonesia, flash floods and mudslides triggered by days of torrential downpours have killed at least 50 people and left 59 injured, disaster officials said.

The floods in Papua province’s Jayapura district submerged hundreds of houses in neck-high water and mud. They also destroyed roads and bridges, hampering rescue efforts.

National Disaster Mitigation Agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said 50 bodies had been pulled from the mud and homes by Sunday, and another 59 people were in hospital, many with broken bones and head wounds. The dead included three children.

AND finally, An Austrian town has burned what organisers say is the world’s tallest bonfire, clocking in at 60.646 metres (198.97 feet).

The local bonfire group in Lustenau, near the Swiss border, took three months to build the structure.

It burned down in less than half an hour on Saturday evening.

Western Austria has a tradition of bonfires called "Funken" which is believed to go back to pagan times.