Hopes Fade For The Thousands Still Missing

[george]

Hopes fade for the thousands still missing

PHUKET: -- Hopes faded today for the 6,000 people still missing after 26 December's tsunamis, as the official death toll rose to 4,800.

Sweden now says that at least 1,000 of its 3,500 missing nationals are probably dead, while Germany has over 1,000 still missing.

Hundreds more are still missing from Italy, Norway, Finland and the Netherlands, particularly tourists who were staying on Thailand's southern resort island of Phuket and in Khao Lak of Phang-nga Province, the two areas hit hardest by the giant waves.

Today Mr. Carl Kent, an Australian police officer who is coordinating with Thai forensic teams, called on the relatives of the missing to cease looking for their relatives in hospitals, an accept that they had almost certainly died.

The identification of corpses was likely to be a lengthy process, he said, noting that after the Bali bombing in Indonesia last year when just 200 people died, it had taken five months to examine all the bodies.

Meanwhile, Mr. Louis Michel, a humanitarian official from the European Union (EU), announced that the EU would boost its financial assistance by another 300 million Euros, from 33 million Euros.

The money would be directed towards repair work, as well as emergency rescue, he said.

--TNA 2005-01-01