Thai death toll doubles - half are foreigners
Teams of forensic experts packed bodies in dry ice today as Thailand’s government announced that its death toll in the tsunami disaster had doubled to more than 4,500 people – almost half of them foreigners – and hopes faded that more survivors would be found.
Another 6,541 were missing, the Interior Ministry said. Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has warned that Thailand’s death toll could approach 7,000.
“We will have to make a great concerted effort to relieve people’s suffering, rehabilitate our country and find an effective warning system,” King Bhumibol Adulyadej said in a New Year’s speech.
Some relatives refused to give up hope. Canadian tourist Dan Kwan was still hunting for his missing parents six days after the waves hit.
“At this point we hope against hope that they are still alive somewhere,” he said, adding it was possible they were unconscious or unable to speak.
The Interior Ministry put the official death toll at 4,560, a twofold increase from the previous day. That figure included 2,230 foreigners.
Rescue and identification teams from a dozen countries focused their efforts 20 mile stretch of beach in Phang Nga province, north of the resort island of Phuket, where Interior Minister Bhokin Balakula said 3,500 bodies were recovered.
Forensic scientist Pornthip Rojchanasiri had no idea how long it would take to identify all the dead.
“I do not know because we do not have enough equipment, people to do this job,” she said.
Thaksin said dry ice was being used in some places to preserve corpses. In others, they were packed into refrigerated containers, but many also were laid out in front of Buddhist temples that dot the wrecked landscape of southern Thailand.
Thai victims who have been identified were being cremated on funeral pyres.
Thaksin said victims’ bodies were still being collected and identified.
“We are only halfway through in the work to gather dead bodies,” he said.
Chinese forensic experts joined the victim identification effort, taking tissue and hair samples for DNA testing at a laboratory in Beijing.
Cheng-Tsung Lu, head of a 35 man rescue team from Taiwan, said he was not optimistic of finding more survivors.
“We’ll try to do our best, but the chances are slim,” he said. He suggested corpses be cremated to ward off the spread of disease with samples of flesh or skin taken for DNA identification at a later date.
Minister of Natural Resources and the Environment Suwit Khunkitti refused to give up hope.
“Anything can happen,” he said. “When these kind of things have happened everywhere in the world, some people have lived for nine days, without food and water, even if injured. So we keep our hopes high and we fight for it.”
