Thailand Still Scarred Five Years After Tsunami

[LaoPo]

5 YEARS LATER

Thailand still scarred five years after tsunami

Swede Olof Carlsson ® comforts his Thai girlfriend, Oi, and her relatives during the cremation of her relative who was killed by the December 26, 2004 tsunami in Thap Lamu, about 900 km (560 miles) south of Bangkok, in this December 29, 2004 file photo.

By Jason Szep BAN NAM KHEM, Thailand Thu Dec 17, 2009 6:29am EST

BAN NAM KHEM, Thailand (Reuters) - Suvadee Sukkasem is still searching for her son who vanished when the Indian Ocean tsunami turned this tropical paradise into a mass grave for thousands of Thais and foreign vacationers nearly five years ago.

Although the sea now frightens her, she refuses to leave her beachside village in southern Thailand, holding out hope for the return of her son, who was four years old when the towering wave crashed ashore with little warning on December 26, 2004.

As the world prepares to mark the fifth anniversary of the tsunami that killed 226,000 people in 13 Asian and African countries, scars have yet to heal even after homes have been rebuilt, tourists have returned and foreign aid has ended.

Ban Nam Khem, a small fishing village on Thailand's Andaman Sea coast, lost nearly half its 5,000 people. Today it is a shell of its former self despite an outpouring of aid in one of the largest foreign fund-raising exercises in history.

Its once-thriving center of dense waterfront stores, restaurants and wooden homes is gone, replaced with souvenir shops, a wave-shaped monument and a small building filled with photographs of the tsunami recovery effort.

"So many people here are still looking for their family," said Suvadee, a slight, 43-year-old woman with an easy smile and weathered hands that clutched worn photographs of her son.

"The village is scared of the sea, but we don't know where to go. We live in new homes, but it is difficult. I don't think I could ever leave here knowing my son has never been found."

She also finds comfort with neighbors who lost family.

When the disaster struck, triggered by an undersea earthquake off the Indonesian island of Sumatra, waves washed Suvadee out to sea. She floated for seven hours, holding her one-year-old daughter with one arm and clinging to wood from a broken boat with the other. Fishermen rescued the two eventually.

In Thailand, 8,212 people were killed in the catastrophe or are still missing. The total included around 2,200 foreign tourists, almost all of whom were vacationing on or around the southern island of Phuket, a region that had contributed as much as 40 percent of Thailand's annual tourism income.

By the start of 2008, tourism had recovered so much local officials confidently predicted it would take just another year to return to pre-tsunami levels, breathing hope into an industry accounting for 6 percent of Thailand's economy.

But the global financial crisis and political uncertainty in Thailand intervened, pushing down tourist arrivals just as foreign aid for tsunami victims dried up.

HOMES AND JOBS

Tsunami aid efforts have mostly finished, said Patrick Fuller, Tsunami Communications Coordinator at the Red Cross.

"There are some road projects, longer term projects. But all the housing projects are pretty much wrapped up," he said.

Local residents say what they need more than the new buildings, roads and other infrastructure is livelihoods.

"Tourism hasn't come back. There are not enough visitors, so the economy has not recovered," said Rotjana Phraesrithong, who is in charge of the Baan Tharn Namchai Orphanage, opened in 2006 for 35 children who lost parents in the tsunami.

Twenty of the orphans have yet to find new parents. A charity bike ride in January organized by British-Australian nonprofit Hands Across the Water will raise funds for a new daycare center after a spike in pregnancy by out-of-work teens.

Down the street from the orphanage, 38-year-old Tasanee Sirisook struggles to make a living in a family-run food-stall in a new fishing village built several kilometers from the sea.

"Most people here are not happy," she said of the rows of government-made houses built on higher ground and painted white. "It's far from work for most people. And it's not easy to find a job like before."

Dozens of small hotels and resorts are up for sale in Thailand's Phang Nga province north of Phuket, whose forested coastline includes Ban Nam Khem and the serene 19-km (12-mile) Khao Lak beach, two of Thailand's worst tsunami-hit areas.

"More than 100 of these small hotels and retail tour operators are looking to sell their operations because they can't obtain loans from banks to keep going," said Krit Srifa, president of the Phang Nga Tourism Association.

"Many small operators are still in debt after renovations since the tsunami and many just haven't recovered financially."

UNIDENTIFIED BODIES

On Khao Lak beach, where the tsunami killed more than 3,000 people, there's little physical evidence of one of history's worst natural disasters, aside from occasional "Tsunami Hazard Zone" signs and color-coded evacuation maps.

A symbol of the catastrophe, the Sofitel Magic Lagoon where more than 300 guests and staff died, re-opened last month as the 298-room JW Marriott Khao Lak Resort & Spa, though just half its rooms are filled heading into peak season.

A couple of kilometers from the beach, waist-high weeds cover Bang Muang Cemetery where about 370 unidentified bodies of tsunami victims are buried.

The grounds, studded with small concrete headstones marked with case numbers under thickets of weeds and wild shrubs, have not been maintained for at least a year, locals said.

The bodies are buried in metal coffins surrounded by concrete chambers to preserve as much DNA as possible, but their identity cannot be proven to international standards of 90 percent certainty, preventing their return to families, said Police Col. Niti Banthuwong, director of the Thai Tsunami Victim Identification unit.

The unit, once hailed as the world's biggest forensics investigation, ceased operations earlier this year.

"We still don't have enough forensic information from these bodies and there is not enough information from relatives to identify these bodies or return them to anyone," he said.

Their DNA is on file in Bangkok, he added.

In Phuket, one of Asia's premier resort islands, tourism is down but few blame the tsunami.

"The only time people seem to talk about the tsunami is in December during the anniversary," said Pattahanant Ketkaew, a 27-year-old manager at Phuket2Go tours near bustling Patong beach.

"Tourism is off, but that's because of the global economy."

(Additional reporting by Ambika Ahuja and Prapan Chankaew)

Source: Reuters

http://www.reuters.com/article/slideshow?a...00C20091217#a=1 Slideshow with photos

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5BG00C20091217 Article

LaoPo

[brasseye]

What happened?

[PhilHarries]

What happened?

What do you mean "what happened?"

What happened five years ago next Saturday? I can't believe you don't know.

[Moonrakers]

What happened?

Surely you can't be serious.

[yabaaaa]

I like the casual slip in for "Phuket 2 go" tours nice bit of promotion.

[simon43]

I have stayed in Baan Nam Khem quite a few times over the past years - it is a place of utmost beauty, with hardly a tourist in sight on the golden beach. It is almost impossible to imagine what happened on that morning 5 years ago.

Simon

[yabaaaa]

"Tourism hasn't come back. There are not enough visitors, so the economy has not recovered," said Rotjana Phraesrithong, who is in charge of the Baan Tharn Namchai Orphanage

Nothing to do with the world econmy then? This is an awful article.

Theyre not alone though the BBC recently reported that Tuvalu island in the Pacific was dissapearing duie to global warming blatant lies.

[londonthai]

Nothing to do with the world econmy then? This is an awful article.

the article says, the tourism in phuket is down not due to tsunami, but other factors.

as to this village, they lost half inhabitants and aid wasn't proportional to the devastation, as they are off the tourist bitten track. Tourists might never come back there if there is no infractructure, some other places took over serving them.

[Oberkommando]

Were any of the Thai Police that were caught misappropriating funds for Tsunami victims and aid punished accordingly?

Or were they just moved to inactive posts and the whole disgusting affair swept conveniently under the carpet?

[Nignoy]

I might be putting my foot in it here , but a well known Queensland company donated prefabricated homes,which according to them are still rotting in a quarantine area at the docks in bkk

[khundon]

What happened?

You stupid Tw**

275,000 people died, that's what happened and you want to make a joke of it.

[cognos]

If you can, do something to help the orphans who to date have received little or no help from the millions donated to the cause.

As an aside, i proposed to my now wife December 26, 2007 on one of the beaches in Phuket.

I will retire early in a few years, and do some volunteer work for unfortunates in LOS. It's all about deeds, not words.. out

[sanook2me]

People talk about..you know where you were when you heard that Kennedy was shot etc... (i wasn't alive then)

But I remember sitting in my home in Rangsit BKK and it was 11 am ish....sitting in shorts and had just cracked a cold brown one and my mother phoned i knew something was wrong in her voice and she was like are you okay and where are you?... you should turn on the tv..

I remember waking my English mate up and we both sat there watching BBC news as they reported about the tsunami and started off with 200 people are thought to have died...2000 people are thought to have died..20000 are thought to have died and the figure just kept increasing...

I will never forget...

RIP...

[Meridian007]

Nothing to do with the world econmy then? This is an awful article.

the article says, the tourism in phuket is down not due to tsunami, but other factors.

as to this village, they lost half inhabitants and aid wasn't proportional to the devastation, as they are off the tourist bitten track. Tourists might never come back there if there is no infractructure, some other places took over serving them.

It's the double-edged sword of poverty and under-development, or tourism and over-development. If they are off the beaten track, they may have a chance to retain their culture and lives as a sleepy fishing village. Rampant development (so common in any "beautiful" place in Thailand), does not always equate to being the best solution.

As you said however, they may not have recieved as much aid because of their location. Hopefully, this hasn't also extended to their exclusion from the early warning systems (as faulty as they are), as well. I know that the efforts are focused on places with high populations, but I'm not sure if smaller areas are included or not.

[keestha]

The Reuters report does not present an accurate picture at all. Khao Lak as a tourist destination is much, much more developed than before the tsunami. New hotels and shopping plaza's are being built all over the place. We even have a Mac Donalds now Tourists who haven't been here for 2 years or so, are amazed at what pace the place has grown.

[needforspeed]

Yes i remember it as it was yesterday, on the beach (Hua Hin) with my 2 year old daugter, two toerist from the UK where called by family around 12:00 they told us about a huge wave around Phuket.

We wen back to our Hotel, terrible what happened there.