Searchers Frustrated by Amsterdam Rubble : Disaster: Up to 250 still missing in jet crash. Cold drizzle hampers removal of debris and hunt for bodies.

Confusion and frustration prevailed Tuesday as searchers dug through a hideous avalanche of debris for the remains of as many as 250 people missing after an Israeli cargo jet plowed into their high-rise apartments.

Efforts to find the two flight recorders of the El Al Boeing 747-200F also proved fruitless for the 300 emergency personnel working around the clock in a cold, constant drizzle.

“So far we have recovered 14 victims and were able to set the target of finishing the whole operation by midnight Friday,” said Mayor Ed Van Thijn.

A forensic team of 80 experts, including dentists and jewelers, began trying to identify the remains in a makeshift morgue in a hangar at nearby Schiphol Airport.

Officials say the exact number of victims may never be known. Workers were able to bring in heavy machinery Tuesday after spending the night reinforcing the twin high-rises that the plane bored through Sunday night.

“A lot of wreckage has been moved,” Fire Chief Hugo Ernst said. “And we expect this is bringing us nearer and nearer the location where a large number of victims are believed buried.”

Authorities say there is virtually no chance anyone will be found alive in the smoldering tomb of twisted steel and broken concrete.

“There was a raging conflagration that was very hot for a very long time, and this makes finding remains very difficult indeed,” Ernst said, adding that “the only method we can use here is to remove the stones one by one to find victims.”

The disaster site is relatively compact; the plane and ensuing fire tore a swath 230 feet wide through the buildings, struck where they joined to form a boomerang shape.

On Tuesday, police escorted reporters through the sealed-off disaster zone for the first time. The ground was littered with jagged pieces of plane and sad reminders of the lives lost.

The detached handles of a baby stroller lay in the muck near charred pages of a paperback book. Laundry still fluttered in the wind on the balconies of apartments left standing in the damaged buildings.

Noxious fumes from jet fuel mingled weirdly with whiffs of French perfume that made up part of the tragic flight’s cargo. Billows of smoke still poured intermittently from the rubble as cranes and bulldozers lifted debris and uncovered hot pockets. Workers also used their hands to dig.

A pond in front of the buildings was drained but failed to yield any victims or critical evidence.

Confusion over the number of victims mounted on Tuesday when the mayor announced that 88 of the 239 registered tenants of the demolished apartments had come forward to say they were not home when the Tel Aviv-bound plane tore through the densely populated complex.

But Van Thijn said officials are not ready to amend the estimate of 250 lives lost because people may have been visiting the buildings or living there illegally.

The dreary suburb southeast of Amsterdam is home to a large immigrant community from the Third World. Hoping to encourage fearful illegal immigrants to answer public appeals for names of possible victims, authorities promised not to question the residency of anyone providing information.

Authorities said it will take days at the very least to compile a list of suspected victims.

Curious bystanders, many of them with children in tow, watched through binoculars and even video cameras as workers picked through the rubble.

Ernst said that finding the ill-fated plane’s two flight recorders is “a low priority” until all crash victims are found.

Large pieces of the plane’s fuselage and wings were plucked from tons of blackened rubble where 80 apartments once stood. Pieces of the plane were being transported to Schiphol Airport, where an international team of 35 investigators were trying to determine what caused the plane to lose both starboard engines before crashing.

“This is the toughest part,” said Barry Pelton, a Boeing worker examining the wreckage at the crash site Tuesday. He discounted initial reports that the pilot had dumped most of his fuel in a nearby lake before the control tower heard his final words: “Going down.”

“He had come from New York and was going to Tel Aviv,” Pelton said. “He had just filled up at Amsterdam. There was still a lot of fuel when he went down.”

But the big mystery, Pelton said as he fingered a fragment of wing, is this: “Why did both engines come off?”

Both of the engines have been recovered.