India, June 12 -- A year after the Air India Flight 171 crashed in an Ahmedabad neighbourhood, the crash site reflects a slow recovery. Today, the four Atulyam hostel buildings remain vacant and dark. Their walls are marked with soot, with cracked sections, broken windows and exposed concrete. Corridors stand empty and dark. Trees in the compound remain blackened, their branches bare. Grass and weeds have taken over the debris and sections of the compound appear undisturbed, as if left in the state they were after the crash.

The marks of devastation are still being unearthed. Ashaben Parmar, a local ragpicker, still finds fragments of the aircraft during her daily rounds. Standing near the most damaged hostel building, she pulls twisted ...