A VISITOR has written a letter to the Austrian Embassy in Bangkok, complaining about the weeds and stagnant water at the Tsunami Victim Cemetery, a short drive north of Phuket.

The cemetery houses the graves of about 380 unidentified victims of the 2004 tsunami.

''Every 'Unknown Soldier' is being paid more respect than the anonymous victims of this monumental disaster,'' the Austrian ambassador was told in the letter.

''Filthy, stinking water with disgusting slimy algae'' filled a cemetery water feature and tall weeds covered most of the graves, the letter said.

The letter's author, Dr Michael Beer, who lives in Indonesia and visits the Andaman coast from time to time, noted that Austria was second among the 39 nations with flags listed at the entrance to the cemetery. (Australia is first.)

Dr Beer asked whether the Austrian Embassy could ''in any way shed light on the maintenance/ care of this place of rest.''

''What steps are possible to erase this blot, with the Austrian national flag gracing this final resting place?''

News of the letter to the ambassador comes with the sixth anniversary of the December 26 tsunami, which killed 5400 visitors and residents from 39 countries in Thailand, fast approaching.

A night tsunami evacuation drill is scheduled for the Phuket village of Kamala this evening and a day drill will follow at Saphan Hin in Phuket City, just two days before the anniversary.

The future of the tsunami cemetery has remained a mystery since senior officers of the once highly regarded Thai Tsunami Victim Identification unit joined envoys from Sweden, Denmark and the US in a ceremony at the then-spotless cemetery to mark the fifth anniversary.

Telephone calls to senior Thai police officers, once part of the TTVI team, ring out. Although a formal announcement has yet to be made, it is believed that the identification process has been brought to a halt.

The TTVI appears to have been quietly disbanded. It has quite a history.

The tsunami left Thailand's Andaman coast dotted with thousands of nameless bodies, victims whose clothes and possessions were swept away.

In a remarkable epic of forensic detective work, teams of police, dentists and DNA experts from all over the world were able to identify all except 380 of the victims.

Some of the remains are believed to be of western children. However, under international standards, formal identification can only be achieved if there is 99.9 percent certainty.

During the first 40 days, bodies were often returned on the basis of visual identification alone, leading to an as yet unspecified number of wrong identifications.

After thorough DNA examination, some families involved had to collect a second body and return the original remains. At least one Thai family declined to return the remains they had claimed.

Nevertheless, the identification process remains a remarkable achievement, sullied only by the lack of respect paid to the remaining 380 nameless victims.