Khao Lak Hit Very Hard

[Darknight]

Thai officials warn the death toll may double, to 2,000, after rescue workers found scenes of devastation in Khao Lak, north of the resort island of Phuket.

Witnesses spoke of bodies strewn along the shoreline, and 500 staff and guests in one hotel alone were reported missing.

DISASTER TOLL confirmed update

Sri Lanka: 13,000 dead

Indonesia: 4,500 dead

India: 3,500 dead

Thailand: 866 dead

Maldives: 52 dead

Malaysia: 44 dead

Burma: 30 dead

Bangladesh: 2 dead

[Darknight]

Corpses, debris cover beach resort

KHAO LAK: -- Corpses were lined up along roads and laid out on debris-strewn beaches in the resort of Ban Khao Lak in Phang Nga as rescue workers cleared the area a day after the killer tsunami crashed onto it on Sunday.

The bodies of dead Westerners, Asians and Thais - many with broken necks, arms and legs - were discovered under the debris of three collapsed buildings. Rescue teams had to use heavy construction drills to extract some of the corpses from under the rubble.

Felled trees, smashed vehicles and toppled buildings littered the ground everywhere. A three-kilometre stretch of beachside road lay buried under mud. Houses and bungalows had been swept out to sea.

After inspecting the area, Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said some 700 people were feared dead here alone. The death toll across the six southern provinces ravaged by the tidal waves may mount to more than 1,000, he added.

A large number of people died in Khao Lak as the waves demolished several crowded hotels. The search for the missing and the removal of corpses remained fraught with difficulty as telecommunication links and transportation routes had suffered considerable damage.

The nationalities of numerous dead people remain unknown because officials have found no identification documents on them.

--The Nation 2004-12-28

[Darknight]

Kylie Morris : Khao Lak, Thailand : 0725 GMT

I can see the wreckage of the hotels that normally string along this beautiful beach. Of course these places have been totally shredded by the waves. Around me they are trying to clear away electrical wires, there's the smell of dead bodies in the air, workers are still pulling bodies from hotel rooms. There are still some foreign tourists here, trying to leave. Seeing this scene, it's clear the scale of the catastrophe that's affected them.

[george]

Reports are now coming in that over 1,000 persons are dead in Khao Lak. The Govt has ordered 1,000 coffins.

[LadyinRed]

We were advised not to go to Khao Lak today due to bad traffic conditions. So we all pooled our donated stuff and got them onto one truck, and a colleague drove up there (instead of all of us going).

Badly needed items:

- Food/ water

- Toiletries

- Clothes, towels, blankets (I donated some bedsheets as well)

- Mats

- Big black liner bin bags (for bodies)

- Baby items (I donated baby clothes, toys, socks, blankets, etc.)

I love this forum for especially opening up a Tsunami info site. Who started this brillant idea?

Red.

[Darknight]

By Darren Schuettler

KHAO LAK, Thailand (Reuters) -

(Sorry for the gruesome aspect, Darknight)

Miles of tsunami-shattered beach hotels on the Thai mainland north of Phuket island began yielding up their dead on Tuesday, bloated bodies, bodies gashed and mangled.

Once the dozens of hotels on the six-mile stretch of sand had been searched, their 5,000 rooms the magnet which drew Thai and foreign tourists to the turquoise waters of the Andaman Sea, the toll from Khao Lak beach was expected to top 1,000.

One disaster official said on Tuesday that rescuers had retrieved 700 bodies from the beach so far.

Thailand's official death toll stood at 1,010, with 1,400 missing. Confirmation of the scale of the disaster at Khao Lak would push that figure beyond 2,000. Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra ordered three days of national mourning.

Deputy Interior Minister Sutham Saengpratoom said he reckoned he had seen probably more than 1,000 bodies on the beach when he flew over it on Monday and that number would make it the worst-hit place in Thailand.

A French radio reporter said on Tuesday that Thai rescue workers had so far recovered some 800 bodies in the area.

Europe 1 radio quoted the reporter as saying many bodies had been found in the rooms of the devastated Sofitel hotel at Khao Lak, where hundreds of French tourists had been staying.

Many more victims were still buried in the rubble and mud which is all that remains after a three-storey-high tsunami smashed into Thailand's southern holiday playground at the peak of the tourist season.

Some were visible, a head sticking out here, an arm there.

Troops trucked about 100 bloated bodies to a Buddhist temple at the southern end of the beach. At least six were foreigners. None of the bodies could be cremated until identified. Few were identifiable.

A flat-bed truck carried 40 bodies, and local people said there were at least another 100 at another temple in the area

Many more were expected to be dug from the ruins of what investors had hoped would turn Khao Lak into a competitor to Phuket, the island 30 miles to the south which is one of Asia's premier beach resorts.

Colonel Becha Kingwongsa said his men had extracted 30 bodies, including those of children, from the Sofitel, a cottage-style hotel owned by the French hotel group Accor, which said around 500 guests and staff were missing.

Most were in the hotel dining room when the tsunami struck. "They didn't know what hit them," he said at the hotel, where the wall of water snapped concrete pillars in half and wrought destruction up to the second of its three floors.

His men had many more cottages to search and they expected to find another 100 bodies.

"I THINK THAT'S HER HAND"

Bejkhajorn Saithong, 39, searching for the body of his wife at the Ban Khao Lak Hotel, said the tsunami had swept 500 meters (yards) inland and struck the second floor of a row of shops.

The hotel was knocked off its foundations, a few body parts jutting from the wreckage.

"My son is crying for his mother. I think this is her. I recognize her hand, but I'm not sure," he said.

In some places, the tsunami swept even further inland. It left a 100-foot marine police patrol boat tangled in the forest 1 km from shore, four bodies beside it.

Chantima Saengli, the owner of the devastated Blue Village Pagarang hotel, told a Bangkok radio station she knew about 60 of her Scandinavian guests were safe.

She feared the other 340 were dead, their bodies swept into the lush rain forest covering the hills behind the beach.

Prime Minister Thaksin canceled plans to attend New Year celebrations in the northern city of Chiang Mai with tennis superstars Maria Sharapova and Venus Williams and urged officials to follow suit

Everyone should wear black from Tuesday to Thursday, when all faiths should hold religious services for the victims, he said.

Bangkok canceled its New Year celebration which tens of thousands of people would have attended.

Edited December 28, 2004 by Darknight

[thaigene2]

George ..how about taking down some of those advert links at the top? Like the one that says "Koh Lak property..great Koh Lak Value". I know it's an oversight and they are probably auto-generated randomly (I hope). Just a bit too creepy right now..

[Darknight]

George ..how about taking down some of those advert links at the top? Like the one that says "Koh Lak property..great Koh Lak Value". I know it's an oversight and they are probably auto-generated randomly (I hope). Just a bit too creepy right now..

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

It's google addwords which is difficult to do as it is built into the html design of the forum , i think. It picks up keywords to display advertisements. As you can only remove it completely it won't de feasable.

Our excuses for Disturbing links, We have no control which link is shown, please ignore them if nessecary.