News Analysis: Photo Album Above
THE PROCESS of identifying the remaining unnamed victims of the 2004 tsunami is to continue, senior police and diplomats confirmed yesterday in a surprise announcement.
For the first time yesterday, it was officially admitted that mistakes had been made in the earlier identification process, clouding the potential successful conclusion of the entire operation.
Giving names back to 3705 victims of the 2004 tsunami was never going to be easy, especially as they included citizens, many of them tourists, from 40 countries.
Observers figured that, running short on funds, the Thai Tsunami Victim Identification process might be wound up . . . and the fifth anniversary loomed as an appropriate time.
Yet somehow, probably with assistance from the international community, extra money has become available. The end has yet to be reached for one of the most amazing sagas of forensic science.
It's hard to find sufficient praise for the intense investigative process that has returned 3307 bodies to families around the world over the past five years. That's a remarkable scientific and humanitarian achievement.
Yet because of inevitable human error in the early days of visual identification, the end-game continues to be difficult.
It was never going to be easy.
For example, the generals who hold power in Burma refuse to accept responsibility for 24 bodies that have been identified as Burmese citizens. How can they be citizens if they have left our country illegally, says the mindless junta.
In the massively tragic aftermath of a natural disaster on the scale of the tsunami, some mistakes are inevitable.
Relatives think they have found a loved one: they want to believe they have found a loved one. Numbers are written in different shapes, by different nationalities. One body bag looks the same as any other.
Only after the first 40 days of forensic work were international standards introduced. From then on, mistakes probably still happened, but given the rigors of the process, probably less frequently.
Today with 398 bodies remaining and 444 people listed as missing, every mistake has returned to haunt those who want to return the remaining bodies to their rightful families.
Compounding the situation is human emotion. Phuketwan was present earlier this year when a Thai man accepted and cremated the body of his wife . . . for a second time. The first hand-back had been found after cross-checking to be the body of the wrong woman.
Others are less accepting of mistakes. The bodies of three Thais, identified positively by DNA, dental records or fingerprints, are not being taken back by their families . . . because they are certain that they collected the right people, and the bodies have been cremated.
Mistakes within the system have also affected families in Britain and Hong Kong: we have been told about those by reliable sources. Other mistakes are almost certain to have occurred among the more than 1060 Swedes and Germans who were victims of the tsunami. There are undoubtedly more.
One man, identified in 2006 as a citizen of Nepal, has been awaiting collection ever since. While the TTVI continues to claim that he is a Nepalese citizen, the Napalese embassy in Bangkok, the editor of a newspaper in Nepal told us, denies that he is one of theirs.
Denial, denial, denial. That's the main end-game issue.
Those 28 identified bodies, 24 Burmese, three Thais and the lone Nepalese, have been kept in cooled sea containers above-ground, awaiting collection. Now these named bodies, successes for the scientific process, are to be re-buried alongside the 370 unnamed victims, within 30 days.
To put those 28 back in the ground is a defeat for the ID process that restored so many names and returned so many ''loved ones.'' As the TTVI had promised: ''We Will Take Them Home.''
But when home does not want them, or they are not loved by all . . .
The process, though, is to continue. During the early days of identification, amid the layers of sand and confusion, DNA samples were fortunately taken.
So, remarkably, five years on, the scientific checking and cross-checking will continue. Perhaps there are more who will be taken home. One day, somehow.
It's a shame that the Thai authorities were not careful with the statistics covering the tsunami.
There were 5395 dead. But a Thai bureaucrat at one stage during 2005 added the ''missing'' to the bodies, double-counting and ignoring the TTVI identification process, so that the official tally remains at an astronomical 8212.
It's a significant mistake, one of several that will hopefully be rectified, for the sake of Thailand's history and many families, before the sixth anniversary.
Update Five years on, the final tally of Thailand's tsunami dead remains elusive. Was their double counting, with some Missing and Dead actually being counted twice?
Thailand Tsunami: Did 2800 More Die Near Phuket?
Tsunami ID Cremation Mix-ups Trouble Families
The return of the wrong bodies to families of some tsunami victims is believed to be making the highly praised Thai Tsunami Victim Identification process even more complicated. PHOTO ALBUM
Tsunami ID Cremation Mix-ups Trouble Families
Tsunami Forensic Team Goes Unpaid: Is it the End?
Photo Album The noble global initiative to identify as many of the 2004 tsunami victims as possible in Thailand may be collapsing amid lack of funds and debate about how the process should end.
Tsunami Forensic Team Goes Unpaid: Is it the End?
Human Bones Add to Great Tsunami Mystery
Photo Album Human bones surface to add to the mystery of the 2004 tsunami. Can the final pieces ever be put together? Or did early mistakes make closure difficult for some families?
Human Bones Add to Great Tsunami Mystery
The Tsunami Toll One Year Later
The toll of the Indian Ocean tsunami is still misreported because of discrepancies that Phuketwan reporters discovered 12 months after the event. Here's what they wrote in 2005.
The Tsunami Toll One Year Later
Bodywork: How Tsunami Victims Reclaimed Names
The work by international police created the greatest forensic detective saga in history. Here is a report from the first 100 days.
Bodywork: How Tsunami Victims Reclaimed Names
Water and Fire: A Tsunami Reunion
The poorest unidentified victims of the tsunami in Thailand are the ones who still have yet to be reunited with relatives. Here from 2007 is a report of one such reunion.
Water and Fire: A Tsunami Reunion
'That's My Mum' as Tsunami Victims Remember
Photo Album Tears flowed, memories flooded back, and the world shared a moment's memory of a day that will never be forgotten along the Andaman's tsunami coast.
'That's My Mum' as Tsunami Victims Remember
Unidentified bodies are 388 excluding those 28 (24+3+1) pending repatriation.
You may check with PlassData records at TTVI - IMC in Bangkok. The machine never lie! Otherwise there will be no accurate & reliable figure. (All are miss)
Editor: We are keen to set the record straight. At the weekend, we were told by the TTVI that there are 398 bodies. That figure includes the 28 who have been identified but remain unwanted (24 Burmese, 1 Nepalese and 3 Thais.) A total of 3307 bodies have been identified since the TTVI began its process. What's not clear is how many bodies were returned in the earlier 40 day period, and how many of those were incorrect. We believe there were a total of 5395 bodies in Thailand, meaning that 2116 were probably handed back in that early high-risk period. Does anyone know for sure? The missing tally, according to the TTVI, now stands at 444. Can we safely assume most of the missing are among the 398 bodies? If all the missing are genuine, this means only 46 people have been ''lost,'' probably swept out to sea or buried along the shoreline. It remains a remarkable scientific process.
Posted by Khemmarin Hassiri on December 29, 2009 09:10