PANGKALAN BUN, Indonesia (AP) — Families who lost loved ones aboard the jetliner endured another excruciating day of waiting yesterday as bad weather hindered efforts to recover any more bodies and sent wreckage drifting far from the crash site.

“Help us, God, to move forward, even though we are surrounded by darkness,” the Rev Philip Mantofa, whose church lost about 40 members in the disaster, told families gathered in a waiting room at the Surabaya airport.

The search for 162 people who vanished Sunday aboard the Airbus A320 was severely limited by heavy rain, wind and thick clouds over the Java Sea. Seven bodies, including a flight attendant in her red AirAsia uniform, have been recovered, said Indonesian Search and Rescue Agency chief Henry Bambang Soelistyo.

Sonar images identified what appeared to be large parts of the plane, but strong currents were moving the debris. Choppy conditions prevented divers from entering the water, and helicopters were largely grounded.

But 18 ships surveyed the narrowed search area, and four of the seven corpses were recovered yesterday before the search was called off for the day. Indonesia’s meteorology agency predicted conditions would worsen, with more intense rains, through tomorrow.

“It seems all the wreckage found has drifted more than 50 kilometres (30 miles) from yesterday’s location,” said Vice Air Marshal Sunarbowo Sandi, search and rescue coordinator in Pangkalan Bun on Borneo island, the closest town to the targeted area.

“We are expecting those bodies will end up on beaches.”

The cockpit-voice and flight-data recorders, or black boxes, must be recovered before officials can start determining what caused the crash. Items recovered so far include a life jacket, an emergency exit window, children’s shoes, a blue suitcase and backpacks filled with food.

Simple wooden coffins, numbered 001 and 002 with purple flowers on top contained the first two bodies, which were sent from Pangkalan Bun to Surabaya for autopsies.

The two victims were a woman wearing blue jeans and a boy. The other five bodies, three male and two female, will remain on a warship until the weather clears. Nearly all the passengers were Indonesian, and many were Christians of Chinese descent.

The country is predominantly Muslim, but sizeable pockets of people of other faiths are found throughout the sprawling archipelago. Around 10 per cent of those in Surabaya, the nation’s second-largest city, are Christian.

Yesterday, around 100 relatives gathered for the airport prayer service where Mantofa urged them to hold onto their faith despite their pain.

About 40 members of his Mawar Sharon Church died in the crash.

“Some things do not make sense to us, but God is bigger than all this,” he said. “Our God is not evil.” Before breaking up, those gathered stood together and sang with their hands reaching upward. “I surrender all. I surrender all,” they repeated. “I surrender all to God our saviour.”

Some relatives gave blood for DNA tests and submitted photos of their loved ones along with identifying information such as tattoos or birthmarks that could help make the process easier.