The Netherlands is preparing to receive the first bodies recovered from the crash site of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17.

The flight came down in a rebel-held area of Ukraine last week with the loss of 298 lives.

As many as 193 of those killed with Dutch, with The Netherlands today holding a national day of mourning.

Identification of the bodies is expected to begin following their arrival at the Korporaal van Oudheusden barracks, in a process the Dutch authorities say could take months.

A refrigerated train carriage carrying about 200 bodies from the crash site arrived in the government-held city of Kharkiv yesterday.

The search at the crash site for more bodies will continue.

Forty coffins were laid out at the airport on Wednesday morning, and will be taken to the Netherlands on two separate flights.

In a separate process, the ‘black box’ flight-data recorders from MH17 have been handed to Dutch authorities by Malaysian officials.

The devices will be sent to Farnborough in the UK for analysis.