Debris from Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 lay splayed for miles across silent rural fields in eastern Ukraine on Saturday . Two days after the jet crashed , some bodies remained strapped in seat belts -- wearing inflight headphones . Conspicuously missing at the crash site near Torez were international forensic workers needed to secure and sort the wreckage , and a recovery crew to identify and remove with dignity the bodies of the 298 people who were on board MH17 . A few things have been moved . Luggage was stacked in piles ; mementos , children 's toys were handled . Most everything is unguarded , there for the curious -- or for the taking . But the debris field has n't changed much overall since it slammed into place from about 30,000 feet in the air . Not like it would change , if investigators had a chance to cordon it off and catalog it . Plane parts , books , bodies . A round piece of wreckage the size of a small garage -- part of the cabin perhaps -- stood tilted over personal effects of people heading for vacation . Fields were bestrewn with novels , beach sandals , guide books and colorful carry-on bags . And all around them were the bodies of their owners , some dressed in shorts and other vacation wear . With leaders around the world calling for a swift , thorough and professional investigation , in eastern Ukraine , a small group of local government workers camping near the wreckage emerge from their tents in the mornings . They split up the crash site territory in an orderly manner to look for bodies , said journalist Noah Sneider , who visited the site . The emergency workers mark spots where they find human remains with stakes and tie white rags around them . There are so many of them . Bodies lie by the roadside , some in fields , some intertwined with parts of the aircraft . And they are spread out so far . `` Half of them are so mangled , you could n't identify them , '' Sneider said . Collecting bodies not their job . A witness who saw the people falling to Earth on Tuesday said they had appeared from out of the cloud cover -- like horrifying rainfall , after the plane tore apart in the sky . Emergency workers tell CNN it 's not their job to collect the bodies . And a local pro-Russian rebel leader has said that officials from the Netherlands and Malaysia asked that the bodies not be moved . But rescue crews and inspectors from those countries are not on site . And to get there , they would have to drive about 90 minutes from the city of Donetsk down pot-hole pocked roads . But these lead through a war zone , past checkpoints set up by varying local militias . There is no central command , virtually no rule of law . Three separate pro-Russian rebel groups guard the perimeter of the crash site alone , Sneider said . A small international delegation . A delegation of 21 monitors from the Organization of Cooperation and Safety in Europe made it in after assurances from rebel leaders , but local militiamen at the site allowed them only a brief view of a small outtake of the crash site . `` It basically looks like the biggest crime scene in the world right now , guarded by a bunch of guys in uniform with heavy firepower who are quite inhospitable , '' said OSCE spokesman Michael Bociurkiw . They asked militiamen for their commander , their leader , he said . `` No one showed up . '' An armed man who appeared to have been drinking was there , Bociurkiw said , but he was n't helpful . `` He kind of rushed all of them away , including the journalists . '' Militiamen would have to trust international and Ukrainian crews enough to let them in , and trust is scarce in the conflict zone , Sneider said . Many militiamen hold conspiracy theories about the crash . `` They claim that it 's a provocation conjured up by the Ukrainian authorities in Kiev . '' They do n't trust anything coming out of Kiev , he said . The OSCE crew is at the site to get an overview and report back what they see . They usually act as observers in conflict zones and are not equipped or trained to recover bodies and evidence . But for now , they , the local workers and a few journalists are the only ones there to care . Body bags at scene of Malaysia Airlines crash ; Ukraine accuses rebels of looting . Malaysia Airlines : Cargo manifest shows 2 dogs among casualties of jet crash . Is this any way to secure a plane crash scene ?
Bodies , wreckage are scattered over eastern Ukraine countryside . Some are starting to decompose in the heat . Heavily armed pro-Russia militants control the crash site .