Tsunami Aftermath : The Agony Of Sweden

[george]

TSUNAMI AFTERMATH : The agony of Sweden

No life left untouched as country agonises over the deaths of its citizens

STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN: -- All along the length of Fairytale Lane in Bromma, the festive lights twinkle through the front windows of timber-fronted villas and children play ice hockey on frozen lawns.

Every so often along the tree-lined lane, a house stands out in its darkness, the driveway empty, the rooms uninhabited, the garden still; a stark testament to the numbers of lives lost from the Asian tsunami in this one community to the West of Stockholm.

More than 410 families from Bromma were in southern Thailand last week; no one knows yet how many will come home. But the signs are that this small community of affluent professionals who traditionally flee the winter cold at Christmas has been devastated by a natural disaster thousands of miles away.

Brigitta Solheimekwall, headteacher of the local school, Smedslattens, was preparing for the worst Monday when she called in psychologists, a priest and doctors for a crisis meeting. Hers is one of four schools known to have lost children in the tsunami. As teachers prepared for the new term, the head stared at the rows of coat pegs outside class 4B – each with a child’s name crayoned above – not knowing who would be returning to use them.

“We know whole families are missing from this school, children from this school are missing,” she said.

“We know we will have empty desks in classrooms next week, and we want to make sure we have the support in place. All over Bromma it is the same, you can feel people’s pain, everyone is affected.”

Away from the frost-covered silver birch trees and chic boutiques of Bromma, the shock and mourning are the same across Sweden. In addition to the 60 confirmed dead, more than 2,300 nationals are listed as missing in Thailand in what is expected to be the worst disaster Sweden has suffered in modern times.

In a country of 9 million, everyone knows someone who is touched by it – from Goran Persson, the prime minister, who saw the name of an old schoolfriend on the list of the missing and Madeleine, the youngest royal princess, to the policeman at Arlanda airport in Stockholm, whose eyes filled with tears as he spoke of the national disaster gripping his country.

The Thai Cabinet yesterday agreed to a request from Sweden to set up a consulate office in Phuket to facilitate assistance to Swedes affected by the tragedy.

Government spokesman Jakrapob Penkair said the Swedish government made the request following public complaints that its response to the crisis was too slow.

“Sweden has offices of honorary consuls in Phuket, Chiang Mai and Pattaya, but their chiefs are not Swedes. So it wants to have its own people to take care of the office,” Jakrapob said.

He added Swedish authorities said yesterday they were afraid to release the names of citizens missing lest their homes be burgled.

“We have chosen, for sadly human reasons, not to publish such a list and say at this address in this town the Petersson family has been absent for a week,” said Prime Minister Goran Persson.

“Unfortunately there are people ready in this country to burgle homes, to destroy and steal things,” he added.

Such thefts occurred after the names of people believed killed in the sinking of the ferry Estonia in 1994, and while the media have reported several such incidents among tsunami missing, police have yet to confirm any burglaries.

In other Nordic countries, which also have hundreds of citizens missing, the publication of lists compiled by diplomats helped quickly reduce the number.

With the site of the catastrophe so many thousands of miles away, the ground zero for Swedes has become the airport outside the capital. The tragedy began and ended here for so many when 20,000 flew off on charter jets and scheduled planes only to return in hugely depleted numbers on mercy flights.

In the arrivals hall police stand guard outside a crisis centre. Twelve psychologists, doctors, nurses, priests and social services wait inside each day to meet survivors.

A separate section of the room – laid out with cuddly toys and sweets – caters for the children, 25 of whom came home as orphans in the past four days alone.

Five mercy flights a day bring hundreds of survivors home.

One who has come through in the last few days is Henrik Blomme, together with his two teenage children but without his wife, Kristina. Her face stares out of a national newspaper, smiling and tanned, along with hundreds of other faces of “the missing”, pictured each day in a desperate attempt by relatives to trace loved ones.

His shock tangible, Blomme cannot remember how or when he returned home, only that his wife did not. “She was with all of us in the hotel room in Khao Lak. When the wave came I threw my kids up onto the roof and climbed up myself as my wife tried to do. But she went back for something and then the water came in and took her.

“I spent three days searching for her, I kept looking, going onto the Internet, out on the streets, but then they told me I had to go home ... they said I had to come back for the sake of my children.”

His story is one of thousands being told by survivors every day. Across Sweden smaller crisis centres have been set up to help in the days, weeks and months of distress to follow.

As Sweden returned to work on Monday desks were empty in offices throughout the nation. At Fritidresor, a travel company which sent many tourists to Thailand over the holidays, staff arrived in depleted numbers themselves – many among the missing presumed dead.

Plans for a monument, similar to one erected after the Estonia ferry disaster 10 years ago, are being considered, but as yet there is no focal point for a national outpouring of grief, shock and anger.

--Guardian News Service 2005-01-04

[george]

Nordic PMs to visit Thailand

STOCKHOLM: -- The prime ministers of Sweden, Norway and Finland will next week visit Thailand, where most of the northern European nationals missing or killed in the tsunamis were vacationing, officials said today.

Goeran Persson of Sweden, Kjell Magne Bondevik of Norway and Matti Vanhanen of Finland are due to travel to Thailand on January 16-19 to discuss reconstruction and humanitarian aid efforts with local officials.

Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen will also visit the region, though the dates for his visit have not been set.

The December 26 tsunami killed more than 145,000 people, including 5200 in Thailand.

So far, 90 people from the Nordic countries are confirmed dead and more than 2300 are missing or unaccounted for. Sweden is the Nordic country hardest hit, with 52 dead and 1903 missing or unaccounted for.

"I will hold talks with Thai Prime Minister Thaksin (Shinawatra) to discuss what Sweden can do to help in the long, painful and in many ways dreadful work that remains to be done there," Mr Persson told reporters.

Sweden's King Carl XVI Gustaf also has announced plans to visit Thailand to express the Scandinavian country's kindness to King Bhumibol Adulyadej and his subjects for the kindness and help offered to thousands of Swedes during the catastrophe.

The Nordic governments have previously said that they will run a joint advertisement in Thai newspapers on Thursday thanking the Thai people.

--Agence France-Presse 2005-01-04