Emergency workers, police officers and even off-duty coal miners have spread out across sunflower fields and tiny Ukrainian villages, searching through the wreckage of the Malaysian plane shot down as it flew miles above the country's battlefield.

The downing killed 298 people from nearly a dozen nations and more than 180 bodies have been located so far, according to emergency workers at the sprawling crash site.

The location was spread out over fields between two villages in eastern Ukraine - Rozsypne and Hrabove - and access to it remained difficult and dangerous. The road from Donetsk, the largest city in the region, to the crash site was marked by five rebel checkpoints, with document checks at each.

In the sunflower fields around Rozsypne, 25 miles from the Russian border, lines of men disappeared into the thick and tall growth. One fainted after finding a body. Another body was covered in a coat.

In Hrabove, several miles away, huge numbers of simple sticks, some made from tree branches, were affixed with red or white rags to mark spots where body parts had been found.

Ukraine Foreign Ministry representative Andriy Sybiga said the bodies will be taken to Kharkiv, a government-controlled city 170 miles to the north, for identification.

Among the debris were watches and smashed mobile phones, charred boarding passes and passports. An "I Love Amsterdam" T-shirt and a guidebook to Bali hinted at holiday plans.

Large chunks of the Boeing 777 that bore the airline's red, white and blue markings lay strewn over one field. The cockpit and one turbine lay half a mile apart, and residents said the tail landed another six miles away.

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