Police have confirmed all of the bodies of the 39 people found dead inside a lorry container in Grays have been removed.

Detective Chief Inspector Martin Pasmore told a press conference at Grays police station this afternoon all of the victims had been recovered from the trailer and were now at Broomfield Hospital in Chelmsford.

Essex Police is continuing to investigate the tragedy which happened in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

31 men and eight women were found dead inside the back of a refrigerated lorry in the Waterglade Industrial Estate.

Four people have been arrested in connection with the incident and one man has now been charged. 

Read more: Northern Ireland man charged with manslughter in lorry deaths murder probe

Speaking at today's press conference, DCI Pasmore said he had met with the Vietnamese ambassador earlier this morning as part of efforts to engage with the country's wider community.

The move comes amid fears some of the victims were from Vietnam.

He said: "Although we can't speculate at this time on the nationality of our victims, it's clear from everybody that we are getting a large amount of engagement from the Vietnamese population, from communities home and abroad."

DCI Pasmore said trying to identify the victims through people from the Vietnamese community in the UK could be a "complex scenario".

He added there were "very, very few" identification papers found among the victims and investigating officers, through post-mortems, would be looking for tattoos, marks or scars that could help the identification process.

He explained information coming from the Vietnamese community, including from abroad, was being collated.

He also revealed he had met with a "facilitator" of one of the websites run for the Vietnamese community to help build trust between it and the police.

DCI Pasmore said he hoped it would help encourage people to "take that leap of faith" and make contact with Essex police.

He added: "If you come in to us we will do everything we can to put our arm around you, take you through this process, identify as quickly as possible to see whether or not we do indeed have one of your loved ones involved in this tragic incident."

Asked about reports the lorry was part of a convoy of three carrying around 100 people, Mr Pasmore said: "No you're homing straight on to an investigative question. My role is to identify the deceased.

"What I will say is I know the senior investigating officer remains open minded.

"There are lines of inquiry that are set of course to establish whether or not there are wider conspiracies involved in this and the lines of inquiry are set to identify the wider conspiracy but I can say no more than that."