( CNN ) -- Burned rubble near a Bali travel guidebook . Twisted metal beside brightly-colored suitcases . Headphones and human remains . In the rural area of eastern Ukraine where a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 fell from the sky on Thursday , the ground was scarred with death and devastation left behind by a flight that never reached its destination . Video footage from the site , located about 30 miles from the Russian border , showed smoke billowing from the smoldering wreckage long after the crash . `` It 's a gruesome scene , '' freelance journalist Noah Sneider said . `` There 's bodies splayed out through the fields . People said the plane kind of exploded in the air , and everything rained down in bits and pieces , the plane itself , the people inside . '' Stunned rescue workers and rebel fighters combed the area , Sneider said , planting sticks with white cotton ribbons where they found bodies in the fields . There are so many dead that it 's unlikely the local morgue will be able to hold them all , Sneider said , even in a volatile region that 's seen waves of death recently amid clashes between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian separatists . `` When there was the battle for the Donetsk airport , something like 50 people died and they did n't have the space , '' Sneider told CNN 's Anderson Cooper . On this flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur , officials say there were 298 people aboard . In the wide fields of tall grasses , debris stretched so far , in so many small pieces , that it seemed unfathomable that anyone would ever know for certain what happened to Flight 17 , Sneider said . `` Finding things like passports , '' he said , `` is a matter of chance . '' Separatists clearly controlled the site , Sneider said . But even battle-hardened rebel fighters appeared shocked , he said . Fighting has torn apart the region . But this is something else . `` Nothing of this scale has happened , '' said Sneider , who 's been covering the conflict for months . Locals in the rural area trying to help were overwhelmed , he said . Firemen who rushed to put out the flames found they had a hose with holes in it , spraying water everywhere , he said . As night fell , search crews seemed uncertain about what to do at first , he said . But eventually , teams put up tents and set up flood lights in the field . Ukrainian officials said rescue and investigation teams had been hampered by armed groups in the area . Pictures suggested the area was hardly a cordoned off crime scene , with people standing on top of parts of the wrecked aircraft . And there are some reports that pieces of the aircraft have been looted and put in people 's yards , CNN 's Nic Robertson reported from Kiev . Sneider said he had n't seen any looting by people in the area . `` Most of them are so frightened that they 're not coming anywhere near here , '' he said .
A witness at the crash site says charred debris fills a wide field with tall grass . ` ` It 's a gruesome scene , '' journalist Mark Miller says . Even battle - hardened Ukrainian rebels are shocked by the devastation , he says .