Maybe Up To 6000 Dead, Tidal Waves Slams Thailand

[Darknight]

Jeez, the Narenthorn list is such a mess!  Way too many duplicates, non-standard data entry, etc...

I am working on a new list which is up-to-date as of now, and hopefully will list names in every which way but loose (surname, first name and first name, surname) since the data entry people often don't know which is which.  This two-way list will ensure that you have the best possible chance of finding who you're looking for - so look for both Tom Jones and Jones Tom.

I will post again when this list is ready.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Thznks onethailand, we appreciate it

post it in the pinned topic if you want

[Darknight]

Asian disaster: Thailand eyewitnesses

from BBC news

We were not even aware that this disaster had happened until a few hours later. All I can say is that the devastation is much worse than it appears on TV. Please report from beaches other than Patong. Kamala has had massive damage as has most of the other beaches along the south and west coasts. There are many more dead than it seems. Please let the world know the whole story. Phuket is not just Patong.

Valerie, Phuket, Thailand

I woke up to what I thought was banging on our hotel door - it blew open and we were tossed from our bed by the surge of tide into the room. It broke out the back windows and we were carried out. We scrambled on to walls and rooftops but within minutes the tide surged higher and 15 to 20 feet was not high enough. The buildings around me collapsed and I was thrown into the surge. When I came up there was a branch I grabbed on and held. Surviving the receding tides was hardest. Pinned against a tree by the water, debris and bodies started to pile up against me and it felt like I was being crushed. In the end, the whole resort was gone. There are many others like me - lost, dazed and searching for their loved ones.

Kevin Aldrich, Phang Nga, Thailand

We saw our beach bungalow torn apart and dragged into the sea. There were two more surges and after these things got even worse. We've been told by police to leave the island. We've lost everything and don't know where to go next except towards the east.

Ian Jeffreys, Patong, Phuket

My family and I were enjoying the sun and the beach at 1100 this morning. As we looked at other hotel guest staring at something on the horizon, we soon became aware that a huge wave was heading our way. We grabbed what we could and just managed to get high enough. Another soon came afterwards. Most of the southern beaches and houses of Krabi are destroyed; the wave carried longboats, cars and trees onto the land and crushed them with its power.

Robert Herrick, Krabi, Thailand

This morning I rode down to the beach front, ambulances whizzing past me. When I got near the beach front I saw piles of cars. Four terrified girls asked me to take them to safety. On the beach front road lay two boats, one had been crushed by a bus. Cars have been thrown through two story buildings. I saw three dead bodies being carried away. I spent the day helping where I could, taking people to high ground. There was a mile long traffic jam snaking out of Patong, it was like a biblical exodus. My local supermarket was one floor underground, it had been flooded, the chance of survival for the staff is close to zero.

Shane Cordell, Patong, Phuket, Thailand

I was sleeping in a tent near a beach in a national park on the east of Phuket airport when I started being shaken around by the sea. I woke up as the tidal waves started to wash the tent away. I could not find the zip and I had to tear the tent apart to get out. I struggled to rescue the tent and its contents but had to rapidly let go of the whole thing to save myself. As I escaped, the water became extremely muddy and the wave and the forested area made the escape very difficult. Finally I managed to climb onto a tree to get some relief from the waves of mud and moving objects (cars, trees). After regaining some strength, I went to rescue a young boy that had been separated from his parents and was stuck in the branches of a fallen tree. His parents were very relieved to find us later on at a local dispensary - one of their friends had not been so lucky and had lost her two kids. As I escaped the area, I could apprehend the vastness of the devastation.

Alain Diandet, Phuket, Thailand

As an Australian medic I, along with two other medical students who witnessed the tsunami were taken to the Ko Lanta hospital where we have worked since midday. I was involved in two unsuccessful resuscitations of drowning victims, and treated over 60 foreign holidaymakers with injuries, mainly multiple fractures, some severe such as skull factures and suspected spinal fractures. There have been three confirmed dead on Ko Lanta with a number of missing local children. One family from Sweden with 10 children were swept from their longboat and sustained multiple abrasions and fractures but survived. We have evacuated 25 patients by military helicopter to the mainland. People are awaiting another wave and most are camping out on hilltops not that any accommodation at beach level remains.

Benjamin Gilmour, Thailand

We saw a wall of water approaching us. When it hit us, it was only about 10 feet high and the boat rose and then dipped. It was a bit rocky but we were all fine. Several more similar waves followed then a lull. A boat man drove us a small distance to shelter behind a small island. We could see the tsunami breaking on the shore behind us in enormous sprays of water. The waves crashed onto the shores on the small islands ahead of us with devastating force - the beach disappearing before our very eyes. Thank goodness we were in relatively deep water. If we had got under way 10 minutes earlier or later, we may not have been so fortunate.

Sumy Menon, off Krabi coast, Thailand

[mrvietnam2001]

Drudge is now repoting 60,000 deaths and that many more could die because of disease in coming days, weeks, months.

http://www.drudgereport.com/

[siamruby]

can anyone please point me to a place that has real up to date info (in thai) or write a short synopsis (in thai) for the thai workers here in israel that work with me: i dont know how much is really being reported on satellite tv from thailand as opposed to cnn bbc etc and i cant read thai to see what is written in the internet news ( the guys dont like browsing thru the internet so i print stuff out) they dont seem to know what is really going on from what they see on the tv and they really want to know.... the thai language newspaper here comes out only in one more week....can pm me if not relevant to this thread....

Hi Bina, I am not sure if this bbc website in Thai will be any use to you?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/thai/

I think you can look at the pics and easily guess what to print.

http://tnastation.mcot.net/

you may have to ask some Thai to pick and choose which one they want.

And another one which seems to have very good list of victims and I think will be very useful for everyone. But I must say that if anyone can easily get upset don't look at the pics because they got pics of the death who they cannot identify so they just put the pics up, and yes lot of blood and gores, especially pic of a baby.very very sad indeed.

http://www.phuketitcity.com/

[viktorrak]

does anyone know if western union is running in Patong? i wanna send some money to thai friends in Phuket and that would be the only way...but i don't know if western union is working or not and if not, when they will open again.

if anybody has info about this, please send me private message or email ([email protected])

thank you very much in advance !!!

i appreciate every kind of info :-)

[Tornado]

does anyone know if western union is running in Patong? i wanna send some money to thai friends in Phuket and that would be the only way...but i don't know if western union is working or not and if not, when they will open again.

if anybody has info about this, please send me private message or email ([email protected])

thank you very much in advance !!!

i appreciate every kind of info :-)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

You definately can send via Western Union in Phuket Town, there is quite a few branches. The only one I knew off was on the beach road in Patong (surely closed).

[onethailand]

The new two-way list is available at

http://www.onethailand.com/casualtylist.html

As an example, if the name of the person you are looking for is Tom Jones, the list will show both Tom Jones and Jones Tom. This way hopefully you'll find things quicker.

The list is up to date as of 1 AM Dec. 29 Thailand time. Only foreigners are listed - I expect Thais will be able to find what they are looking for with the number of resources available to them. Unfortunately, ages are missing from the new Narenthorn lists.

Now if we can only get the data entry people to use a standard format...

Edited December 28, 2004 by onethailand

[married2surin]

sky news in the Uk is saying over 59000 now confirmed dead.... so sad.

[Darknight]

CONFIRMED DEATH TOLL BBC news

Sri Lanka: 18,706 dead

Indonesia: 27,174 dead

India: 4,371 dead

Thailand: 1,400 dead

Maldives: 52 dead

Malaysia: 44 dead

Burma: 30 dead

Bangladesh: 2 dead

Somalia: 100 dead

Kenya: 1 dead

Seychelles: 3 dead

Tanzania: 10 dead

[Darknight]

Disease 'could swamp wave zones'

There is still no news from some areas affected by the disaster

The number of people dying from disease following the Indian Ocean tsunami could exceed those killed in the disaster itself, a health expert warns.

Dr David Nabarro of the World Health Organisation said it was vital to get relief supplies to stricken areas to prevent a health catastrophe.

"There is certainly a chance we could have as many dying from communicable diseases as from the tsunami," he said.

Aid workers say providing clean water is their first priority.

It is feared diseases like malaria, dengue fever and cholera could easily spread in unsanitary conditions.

In India, scores of camps have been set up in affected areas. The aid agency Unicef said some cases of disease had already emerged.

"Getting clean water to people in the camps is critical at this point to head off the spread of disease," it said in a statement.

"We are closely monitoring the hygiene conditions... Some diarrhoeal cases have already been reported, so providing oral rehydration solution is critical," it said.

Hospitals in the region are urging people to boil water before drinking it.

But people are still using water from local wells, despite the contamination fears.

"Nobody told us not to drink this water. Nobody has told us to boil the water," said Siddiqa, a mother of four, in the Nagapattinam region.

Municipal authorities across the stricken region have been burying dead bodies even before they have been identified, fearing they will spread disease.

In Indonesia, the BBC's Rachel Harvey says human remains are being piled up under plastic sheeting prior to mass burial.

But Dr Alessandro Loretti of the World Health Organization said this could end up being a waste of resources, and that far greater priority should be given to the provision of clean water and the management of human waste.

"It will be living people who pollute the water," he told the BBC.

Distribution problem

He said the WHO was sending enough water purification supplies and drugs for tens of thousands of people in Indonesia, the Maldives and Sri Lanka.

But he said even more urgent was the need to find out what was happening in parts of Indonesia and the Maldives yet to be reached.

Agencies say getting emergency supplies to the stricken areas in time to prevent disease will be very hard.

"It is going to be a huge problem getting relief even out of the airport" in Aceh, Indonesia, said Michael Enquist, the head of the United Nations Organisation for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

"There is no petrol, no food, no water and no vehicles available," he told the AFP news agency.

Help organisations

http://www.careinternational.org.uk Care International

http://www.ifrc.org/ International Federation of the Red Cross

http://www.msf.org Medecins Sans Frontieres

http://www.unicef.org Unicef

http://www.wvi.org/wvi/home.htm World Vision

http://www.savethechildren.org.uk Save The Children

[thaiwing]

Hi all

This thread has become massive to go searching for relief organisations....can someone help posting a suitable number to go and help these people around asia. I'm self finaned to travel to any region, but food and travel at point must be organised by relief organisation........come on someone......not just thailand at present......I'm a dad and its so painful to hear all day...

Edited December 28, 2004 by thaiwing

[onethailand]

Ok.

Added an English-only barebones copy of the Phuket IT City List - which can be a bit tedious to work with but is very comprehensive.

http://www.onethailand.com/statuslist.html

What you do is go see the list - which is in alphabetical order, but you should look by first as well as last name since it is still based on the poor data entry coordinated lists from Narenthorn and the hospitals.

If you see, or think you see, someone you are looking for, you should then go to this list

http://www.phuketitcity.com

and do a search by name, where you can pull up more details.

[cdnvic]

Hi all

This thread has become massive to go searching for relief organisations....can someone help posting a suitable number to go and help these people around asia. I'm self finaned to travel to any region,  but food and travel at point must be organised by relief organisation........come on someone......not just thailand at present......I'm a dad and its so painful to hear all day...

I know its hard to look at and you probably feel like you should be doing more. The reality is that unless you have a specific skill thats in demand, like a doctor for instance, you risk getting in the way and straining resources.

Taking the $$$ you would spend to travel and giving it to the Red Cross, Oxfam, Salvation Army, or other relief organizations can do hundreds of times more than your physical presence can. A small family can be fed for two weeks on what it costs for you to take a taxi to the airport.

Just because you aren't there doesn't mean you can't do something important. Donate funds to put the right tools in the hands of the rescuers, and relief agencies. They and the victims throughout Asia and Africa are counting on you.

Thank you

cv

[aughie]

Radio says America's relief efforts will be headquartered at Utapao airport. United States government relief for the entire Indian Ocean disaster areas will be handled from this site.

[taxexile]

from the uk daily telegraph online

Death now pervades what was once a tourist idyll

By Sebastien Berger in Khao Lak

(Filed: 29/12/2004)

The number of fatalities in Thailand almost doubled yesterday as the full extent of the carnage the tsunami had wreaked on an idyllic coast packed with expensive resorts became clearer.

By nightfall the number of confirmed dead had soared to at least 1,516, including 10 Britons. Nearly half of those were in Khao Lak, a palm-lined stretch of coast popular with tourists. Scores of pick-ups and ambulances were delivering bodies to mortuaries set up in villages normally the preserve of carefree holidaymakers and smiling Thai workers.

 

Victims of the disaster lay on the beach at Khao Lak

Mechanical diggers excavated ditches full of debris and the remains of five-star hotels, exposing more victims as huddles of friends and relatives watched. Earlier finds were lined up on the verges, wrapped for transport.

The tsunami appears to have struck the area with more force than anywhere else in Thailand, with the wreckage carried almost a mile inland. Many of the dead are believed to have been in the Sofitel Magic Lagoon, a luxury resort that was full to capacity, with 415 guests.

The hotel, a sprawling complex of cream buildings with wooden balconies and curving, Thai-style roofs has been left ruined. "We still hold out hope for around 70 people. For the rest, unfortunately, we have very little hope," said Jean-Marc Espalioux, of the hotel's French owners, Accor.

The tsunami appears to have surged through the ground and first floors, sweeping mattresses and room fridges for hundreds of yards behind the buildings.

 

Thai soldiers excavated the remains and vehicles emerged laden with the dead. One searcher said they had found "a lot" of bodies and a dazed young Swiss staff member said: "I don't know how much. I only know it was too much."

At the 111-room Khao Lak Laguna, the devastation was even more complete. Every beach-front bungalow had been flattened and the room blocks further back were a mass of twisted concrete.

At least one appeared to have been lifted from its foundations, as a body recognisable as a woman only because of her bikini lay next to it, her head wedged under the floor. Passports and driving licences stuck out of the mud and sand, as did a copy of the Dalai Lama Book of Wisdom and a child's toy telephone.

 

One-year-old Hannes Bergman who's mother is still missing

One recovery worker said he had lost count of the number of bodies. There were probably more in the swimming pool, which was filled with wreckage.

"This is Khao Lak," an onlooker said from a viewpoint above the beach. "It's supposed to have a lot of hotels but now you can see everything has gone."

On the remote island of Phi Phi, made famous by the book The Beach, more than 300 bodies have been recovered.

Serge Barros, 43, a French rescue volunteer, said: "We have been working all day in this incredible heat to find bodies but it's not easy to do much else. We don't have people to move them, and, once they are moved, the bodies are just put in rows in the sun."

28 December 2004: Thousands of survivors flee from paradise islands by boat and plane

Previous story:  Cracks opened in the earth, then the waves came and people disappeared

© Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2004. Terms & Conditions of reading.

Commercial information.  Privacy and Cookie Policy

[Dario]

The death toll already stands at over 63,000. Wiped out just like that, all in one single day in a matter of hours.... God's power is awesome!l

All I could do is give some of my blood yesterday, I have O Rh Negative.

Edited December 29, 2004 by Dario

[snowleopard]

The death toll already stands at over 63,000. Wiped out just like that, all in one single day in a matter of hours.... God's power is awesome!l

All I could do is give some of my blood yesterday, I have O Rh Negative.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

God's power is awesome!l

He certainly keeps his ignorant little subjects busy with prayers for mercy... with his killing sprees!

Snowleopard

[chuchok]

just on BBC5 mins ago, were reports that there are looters in thailand dressed as Police. I hope they are NOT the real police.

[Darknight]

Race to Bury Asia's Dead as Toll Hits 68,000

Reuters

(not for sensitive readers)

By Tomi Soetjipto and Dean Yates

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia (Reuters) - Thousands of corpses rotted in Indonesia's tropical sun on Wednesday as rescuers scoured isolated coasts across the Indian Ocean for survivors of Sunday's giant waves that killed more than 68,000.

Many who escaped death in what may have been the deadliest tsunami in more than 200 years now face a fight for survival against hunger and disease. The United Nations mobilized what it called the biggest relief operation in its history.

The ocean surge was triggered by a 9.0-magnitude undersea earthquake, the biggest in 40 years, off the Indonesian island of Sumatra, spreading in an arc of death across the Indian Ocean and striking from Indonesia to Sri Lanka, and beyond to Africa.

U.S. scientists said the quake that set off the killer wall of water permanently moved tectonic plates beneath the Indian Ocean as much as 98 feet, slightly shifting islands near Sumatra. It may also have made the Earth wobble on its axis.

Survivors told harrowing tales of the moment the tsunami, up to 33 feet high, struck towns and resorts, sucking holidaymakers off beaches into the ocean and smashing people and debris through buildings.

UNICEF executive director Carol Bellamy said children could account for up to a third of the dead.

Indonesia has suffered the biggest number of victims, with 32,502 known to be dead and a final toll of 40,000 expected.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono spoke of "frightening reports" from outlying parts of Aceh province, on the northern tip of Sumatra and closest to the quake's epicenter.

The stench of decomposing corpses spread over the provincial capital, Banda Aceh, and fresh water, food and fuel were running short. Many in the city feared fresh quakes and tsunamis, and roads were filled with people trying to leave.

"We haven't eaten for two days. We have to get out of here," said Irawan, 35, whose optician's practice was destroyed.

Bodies lay scattered on the streets. Soldiers and volunteers were collecting corpses for mass burial to prevent disease

AID TEAMS ARRIVE

International aid teams landed in devastated villages as health experts said disease could kill as many people as the waves.

The World Food Program was sending trucks of food to parts of Sri Lanka while the Red Cross dispatched sanitation teams to villages in Sri Lanka and Indonesia.

Munich Re, the world's largest reinsurer, estimated the economic cost of the devastation at more than $13 billion.

Secretary of State Colin Powell said the international community may have to give billions of dollars in aid.

The United States more than doubled its pledge to $35 million and ordered 12 vessels, including the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, helicopter carrier USS Bonhomme Richard and a submarine, to the region.

Australia increased its aid to $27 million and said it, the United States, Japan and India were considering setting up a core group to coordinate help.

"A lot of the economies, or sectors of the economies, of the affected countries have been close to destroyed and it is going to require a great deal of rebuilding and a great deal of investment," said Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer.

SURVIVING ON COCONUTS

In Sri Lanka, where the death toll neared 22,000, hundreds were killed when a wave crashed into a train traveling to Galle from Colombo, wrecking carriages and uprooting the track. The train was called "Sea Queen."

Tamil Tiger rebels in the island's north appealed for help as they dug mass graves to bury thousands of bodies. All 135 children at an orphanage run by women rebels were killed.

Rescue teams headed out to the last of India's remote Andaman and Nicobar islands that have been cut off since Sunday. People on some of the isles have been surviving on coconuts

India's toll of nearly 12,500 included at least 7,000 killed on the islands, which are closer to Myanmar and Indonesia than to the Indian mainland. On one, the surge of water killed two-thirds of the population.

"One in every five inhabitants in the entire Nicobar group of islands is either dead, injured or missing," a police official said. Dozens of aftershocks above 5.0 on the Richter scale rocked the islands.

In parts of India's Tamil Nadu state officials gave up trying to count the dead and were counting survivors instead while disposing of bodies as quickly as possible in mass graves.

In Thailand, where thousands of tourists were enjoying a peak-season Christmas break to escape the northern winter, many west-coast resorts were turned into graveyards.

The waves may have killed more than 3,000 at Khao Lak beach, north of Phuket island, police said. Already 1,200 bodies had been recovered from the beach and its hotels, popular with Western tourists, especially Scandinavians and Germans.

Khao Lak

For search teams in Khao Lak the problem was not finding bodies but identifying them. Many are so bloated it is impossible to tell their sex, never mind their nationality. Throughout the region more than 3,500 foreigners were unaccounted for, among them at least 1,500 Swedes, 800 Norwegians, 214 Danes and 200 Finns.

Hundreds of people were killed in the Maldives, Myanmar and Malaysia. The arc of water struck as far away as Somalia and Kenya. Indian Ocean countries have no tsunami warning system.

[cdnvic]

just on BBC5 mins ago, were reports that there are looters in thailand dressed as Police. I hope they are NOT the real police.

Can't find any confirmation. Keep an open mind because:

- Every government employee, parking attendant, etc wears a quasi-military uniform.

- They may have been getting supplies. (Have seen it in floods here)

cv

[Darknight]

Aid Groups Try to Cope with Tsunami Disaster

By Michael Perry

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Aid agencies struggled on Tuesday to cope with a vast humanitarian catastrophe after the Asian tsunami disaster left at least 60,000 dead and enormous devastation across a broad swath of nations.

The United Nations said it was preparing to issue what could be its largest appeal for donations in its history to cope with its biggest and costliest relief effort.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) launched a new campaign to raise more than 50 million Swiss francs ($44 million) after issuing a flash appeal on Sunday for 7.5 million Swiss francs ($6.57 million).

The aid would aim to help bury the dead, battle disease, assist survivors and get reconstruction efforts off the ground.

"This is a massive humanitarian disaster and with communications so bad in many areas, we still don't know the full scale of it," Oxfam Community Aid Abroad executive director Andrew Hewett told reporters in Australia.

"The enormity of the disaster is unbelievable," said Bekele Geleta, head of the IFRC in Southeast Asia.

U.N. Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland said in New York that the world body would likely issue the largest appeal for aid in the five decades it has been coordinating the global response to natural disasters.

HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS

U.N. officials said the appeal, expected to be issued next Monday, would seek hundreds of millions of dollars for immediate relief efforts. Requests for reconstruction aid would come later and would be in the billions of dollars, they said.

Diplomats from some of the hardest hit nations said after an information-sharing and coordination meeting with Egeland on Tuesday morning that, while needs varied from country to country, body bags, medical supplies, water purification pills, food, clothing and bedding were high on everyone's list.

"The wave swept across the country without sparing anything," said Ambassador Mohamed Latheef of the Maldives, where water covered a third of the country's 200 islands

We have never experienced anything like this in our lifetimes," said Ambassador Bernard Goonetilleke of Sri Lanka, where the disaster left over a million homeless.

"Hundreds of thousands of people fought to survive the tsunamis on Sunday. Now we need to help them survive the aftermath," said Carol Bellamy, executive director of the U.N. children's agency UNICEF.

"We're concerned about providing safe water, which is urgent in all these countries, and about preventing the spread of disease. For children, the next few days will be the most critical," said Bellamy.

About a third of the victims were likely to be children as children make up at least a third of the population in the 10 countries most touched by the disaster, she said.

For many survivors, aid has been too slow in coming. In Indonesia's Banda Aceh, fear was mixed with anger as residents lingered outside the few open shops guarded by soldiers.

'THERE IS NOTHING'

"Where is the assistance? There is nothing. All the government are asleep," said Mirza, a 28-year-old resident.

In southern Thailand, local people were using spades, hoes and hand saws to try to reach survivors and the dead.

Several Asian nations have sent naval ships carrying emergency supplies and doctors to devastated coastal areas.

A Thai hospital ship was headed to the devastated island resort of Phuket, where 203 people are known to have died and many more were injured. Doctors and nurses operated in makeshift surgeries on Thailand's west coast.

Thailand's national blood center called for urgent supplies of rhesus negative blood, more common among foreigners. Hundreds of Western tourists were killed at beach resorts in Thailand and Sri Lanka and many more injured, bones broken and cut by debris.

Relief teams in Sri Lanka and Indonesia, two of the hardest-hit nations, sought to prevent the spread of disease from rotting corpses and putrefied water by burying corpses in mass graves and flying in shelter and water sanitation kits.

Sri Lankan survivors faced an additional threat from land-mines dislodged by the tsunami, UNICEF said. There are an estimated two million land-mines in Sri Lanka.

"Mines were floated by the floods and washed out of known minefields, so now we don't know where they are and the warning signs on mined areas have been swept away or destroyed," UNICEF's Ted Chaiban said in Colombo

[LivinLOS]

I have read these reports on Khao Lak looters also.. Being dressed as police ?? Were would they find uniforms on short notice in a situation like this..

I hear they have been getting hotel safes and deposit boxes.. Farang bags from hotel rooms etc..

[Darknight]

I have read these reports on Khao Lak looters also.. Being dressed as police ?? Were would they find uniforms on short notice in a situation like this..

I hear they have been getting hotel safes and deposit boxes.. Farang bags from hotel rooms etc..

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

There always will be vultures in a disaster

[lingling]

I have read these reports on Khao Lak looters also.. Being dressed as police ?? Were would they find uniforms on short notice in a situation like this..

I hear they have been getting hotel safes and deposit boxes.. Farang bags from hotel rooms etc..

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

What is so strange about the police collecting safes, luggage etc? That is a likely place to find passports and other things that may help them identify victims...

[cdnvic]

I have read these reports on Khao Lak looters also.. Being dressed as police ?? Were would they find uniforms on short notice in a situation like this..

I hear they have been getting hotel safes and deposit boxes.. Farang bags from hotel rooms etc..

What is so strange about the police collecting safes, luggage etc? That is a likely place to find passports and other things that may help them identify victims...

Very good point Lingling.

With decomposition setting in this fast in heat/humidity they'd need to make quick identifications so they don't have to go through all the delay and pain (for relatives) of a DNA test.

cv

[Darknight]

Thailand death toll could reach 2,000

Associated press

KHAO LAK, Thailand (AP) -- Soldiers used bulldozers Tuesday to push into a strip of Thai luxury resorts destroyed by tidal waves, and picked the bodies of European tourists from ruined gardens and suites.

Officials said at least 700 foreigners had died, and the death toll could reach 2,000.

The stench of death hung over a 30-kilometer (19-mile) stretch of coast in the southern Phang Nga province, which had been packed with foreign tourists from more than 20 countries staying at international hotels such as the Le Meridien, Novotel and Sofitel.

Mud and debris left behind by tidal waves that struck on Sunday made parts of Phang Nga hard to reach immediately after the disaster, and bloated and rotting bodies remained littered along the shorefront as volunteer rescue crews and troops went about their work Tuesday.

Phang Nga and the nearby resort islands of Phuket and Phi Phi were worst hit by the waves, which killed 1,516 people and injured 8,432, according to the latest tally of the Interior Ministry's Department of Disaster Prevention and Relief. Of the dead, 950 were found in Phang Nga and 203 on Phuket.

Deputy Interior Minister Sutham Saengprathum said it was certain that more than 700 foreigners were among the dead, but the exact number was still not known.

Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said the overall death toll could pass 2,000, given the large number of still missing people.

In Phuket, dozens of parents desperate to find missing children rushed to a hospital after news circulated of an unidentified 2-year-old blond-haired boy. All left disappointed -- except his Swedish uncle who said he found the boy after seeing a report on the Internet. (editors note: !!!!)

The boy -- with red marks streaking his face -- was found sitting on a road soon after the waves hit.

In Khao Lak on the mainland, some 200 bodies -- about 70 percent of them foreigners -- were laid at a makeshift morgue at the Buddhist Rasneramith temple, said volunteer Somsak Palawat. Bloated, black and green corpses, many of them children and babies, were also scattered around the temple.

Near the devastated Similan Beach and Spa Resort, where some 60 mostly German tourists had been staying, the corpse of a naked man hung suspended from a tree as if crucified. A police patrol boat lay beached more than a kilometer (half a mile) from the sea.

At the nearby Sofitel, executive Ofwald Tichler declined to say how many of the hotel's guests had died as waves smashed into the 319-room resort. The first floors of the three-story, Thai-style building were destroyed, and thick mud caked the once beautifully landscaped area between the lobby and beach, a distance of some 300 meters (328 yards).

Several rotting bodies could be seen on the beach, under debris and in a pool of water in front of the hotel as Thai soldiers moved in to search for survivors and the dead. The hotel, owned by the French Accor Hotels and Resorts, was often filled by French vacationers paying about US$200 (euro147) a night.

"I lost my girlfriend. We saw the wave coming. It was so huge we had no time to run," said Karl Kalteka of Munich, Germany, who was at the beach in front of the Sofitel when the first wave struck. "I saw many kids perish. I saw parents trying to hold them but it was impossible. It was ######."

Kalteka, who suffered numerous broken limbs and other injuries, spoke at Phuket airport where he lay in a stretcher. He still had hope his girlfriend was alive and they would be reunited in Bangkok.

The search operation around the Sofitel was temporarily suspended over fears that a nearby weapons arsenal at the Phang Nga Navy Base might explode, but Navy Rear Admiral Apiwat Sriwanna later said there was no danger of an explosion.

However, a bomb expert said that missiles and mortar shells from the depot were swept out to sea when the base, at Thap Lamu village, was hit by waves. The expert, who demanded anonymity, said there was danger the mortar shells could explode but the missiles posed no danger.

Citizens from South Korea, Japan, France, Germany, South Africa, Ireland, Denmark, Finland, Australia, Mexico, Russia, Sweden, Portugal, Israel, Chile, Spain and the United States were among the thousands of foreigners in stricken areas of six provinces Sunday.

The Swedish tour operator Fritidsresor said 600 Swedes who were vacationing in Khao Lak were not accounted for.

Phang Nga Governor Anuwut Medhiwiboonwut said about 1,000 searchers, including army troops riding bulldozers, would move into four areas of the province that have been difficult to access because of flooding and thick mud crusts. The governor said he expected about 400 bodies to be recovered Tuesday.

About 1.2 million foreigners are likely to cancel their trips to Thailand, costing the industry some 30 billion baht (US$750 million, euro555 million), The Nation newspaper cited the Association of Thai Travel Agents as saying.

In one of the first known incidents of looting, Thaksin said that some bank teller machines on Phi Phi had been broken into.

Thaksin and his ministers wore black and white -- the colors of mourning -- at a cabinet meeting Tuesday. The government ordered the civil service to dress similarly for three days and fly flags over government buildings at half-staff.

Thaksin said the government would provide tourists who had lost their money in the disaster with airplane tickets home.

see full story here

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/asiapcf/12/2...d.ap/index.html

[chuchok]

Looting will be happening. It's a sad fact of life. There will be low lifes in all countries that will resort to this.

[Horizontalbiker]

Thai officials admitted to the Guardian yesterday that they had downplayed warnings in order to safeguard the tourist industry.

No fingers being pointed but there was alot of time to warn people and get them off the beaches.

My sympathies to all involved. If you can please go and donate blood as it is seriously needed. Info available on this site.

Any spare clothing to the American embassy.

[WernerS]

Looters

People be carefull in your comments and avoid to transform this tragedy in one more of our complains about Thailand and Thia people.

In a situation in where so many people, specially wealthy tourist, lost or left so many valuables it should be expected that somebody will want to collect them.

For sure many valuables are spread all around.

Looters will be unavoidable, as in any disaster in a westernn country, but the danger is to assume that whoever pick up something is a looter.

The bottom line is that spirit of the Thai people in general,as of the westerners, is the one of sorrow and genuine desire to help in this tragedy.

Lets concentrate in the goodness and how we can help.

[taxexile]

nicely put.

i totally agree.