JAKARTA, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- A total of 37 bags of body parts from the crashed Indonesian plane have been brought to a Jakarta hospital for identification, according to a rescuer on Wednesday.

The Lion Air plane with 189 people onboard crashed into the waters off karawang of Indonesia's West Java province shortly after taking off from Jakarta on Monday.

Rescuers put the body parts they had found earlier into 37 bags and took them to the police hospital in Jakarta for identification, Yusuf Latief, head of communication for media of the national search and rescue office said.

"A total of 37 body bags, all of them containing parts of human bodies, the victims of the Lion Air plane, have been brought to the police hospital," he told Xinhua by phone.

More items belonging to the passengers of the Boeing 737 Max 8 jet plane have also been retrieved by the rescuers, he said.

Latief reaffirmed that the search for the victims and the main wreckage of the aircraft is still ongoing Wednesday.

The rescuers extended the area of search operation on Wednesday to 15 nautical miles, according to the national search and rescue office deputy chief Nugroho Budi Wiryanto.