15 years on, over 300 tsunami victims from Thailand’s coast still unidentified

Fifteen years after the Indian Ocean tsunami killed upwards of 230,000 people on December 26, 2004, a container at the Takua Pa police station in Phang Nga, southern Thailand, still contains personal items from the hundreds of victims whose remains are unlikely to ever be given a name.

Wallets, documents, keys, electronic items, all labeled and catalogued as evidence, await positive identification. Nearby a graveyard contains 340 bodies buried in unmarked graves but police hope that, if people came forward to identify some of the items, there is still hope that some of the bodies could rest in peace with a name attached.

Colonel Khemmarin Hassini is the deputy police commander in Takua Pa district. The area, taking in the coastal tourist resort of Khao Lak, was one of the areas hardest hit by the Boxing Day tsunami. The shallow approach and low-rise of the beach landscape allowed the waves to hit with speed and continue up to a kilometre inland.

“There are still more relatives of the victims, both near and far, that have hopes of finding their lost loved ones.”

The tsunami was triggered by a 9.1-magnitude earthquake just before 8am (Thai time). But the killer waves didn’t reach the Thai coastline until about 2 hours later.

Around the Indian Ocean, the tsunami killed more than 230,000 people as waves as high as 17 metres crashed hit the shores of more than a dozen countries around the ocean’s perimeter.

More than 5,000 people died in Thailand. The Disaster Victim Identification unit involving police and an international force of forensic experts were able to identify more than 3,600 bodies. It took nearly two years but it was the largest and most successful project of identification of its kind.

Colonel Khemmarin hopes, even though nearly 15 years have past, there was still a hope they could re-activate many of the lead and put names to some of the identified bodies. The Colonel was part of the international forensics team and fears that many of the possible leads have gone cold in the time that has passed.

Speaking to Reuters in the Takua Pa place station he said… “If we are determined enough and reactivate our operations once again, I think some of the 340 unidentified bodies could be identified.”

In ten days it will be the fifteenth anniversary of the Indian Ocean Tsunami, one of the deadliest natural disasters in the last 100 years. Poom Jensen, the grandson of the late King Bhumibol Adulyadej, and a nephew of the current Thai King, was killed whilst his family was holidaying at Khao Lak.

Source - Reuters / TheThaiger

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Strong 5.9-magnitude quake jolts Indonesia's #Lombok

Mataram, Indonesia - A strong aftershock struck Indonesia's Lombok on Thursday, causing panic among evacuees sheltering after a devastating earthquake killed more than 160 on the holiday island four days earlier.

The 5.9-magnitude quake Thursday struck at a shallow depth in the northwest of the island, the US Geological Survey said, even as relief agencies raced to find survivors among wreckage from Sunday's quake.

    "The quake was felt strongly. There have been 355 aftershocks since Sunday," national disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said.

    Evacuees at a shelter in northern Lombok's Tanjung district ran out onto the road crying and screaming, an AFP reporter at the scene said.

    Motorcycles parked on the street toppled over and the walls of some nearby buildings collapsed.

    A woman wearing a motorbike helmet was seen crying with her two daughters in her arms.

    "We were stuck in the traffic while delivering aid, suddenly it felt like our car was hit from behind, it was so strong," witness Sri Laksmi told AFP.

 

 "People in the street began to panic and got out of their cars, they ran in different directions in the middle of the traffic."

     The aftershock comes after Sunday's devastating 6.9-magnitude earthquake, which relief agencies said had wiped out entire villages in the worst-hit regions of northern and western Lombok.

    A total of 164 people have been confirmed killed in Sunday's quake, national disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho told AFP, with a further 1,400 seriously injured and more than 150,000 displaced.

    Relief efforts had yet to reach parts of the island even before Thursday's aftershock, Indonesian authorities said, with hopes fading of finding further survivors among the wreckage.

    "The earthquake does not have any tsunami potential," Hary Tirto Djatmiko, spokesman for Indonesia's meteorology, climatology and geophysics agency (BMKG), said of Thursday's aftershock.

Source - TheNation

 

Philippines - Regions share this Number of Mayon evacuees surges to about 84,500 - local officials

The number of evacuees in Albay province swelled to almost 84,500 as threats of a possible major explosion of the restless Mt. Mayon persists.

In a report of Legazpi City’s Provincial Disaster Operation Center issued on Wednesday, a total of 84,425 individuals or 21,987 families from the 61 barangays within the 8-kilometer danger zone are currently sheltered in 79 evacuations centers located in different Albay towns.

This figure is 15,000 individuals or 3,696 families higher than the recorded 69,425 individuals or 18,291 families evacuated from the danger zone as of Tuesday.

 Meanwhile, the Philippine Institute of Seismology and Volcanology (Phivolcs) documented from Tuesday morning until Wednesday early morning a total of 298 volcanic earthquakes, 52 rock fall events, and four pyroclastic density currents generated from lava collapse.

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“The public is strongly advised to be vigilant and desist from entering the eight kilometer-radius danger zone, and to be additionally vigilant against pyroclastic density current, lahars, and sediment-laden stream flows along channels draining the edifice,” the Phivolcs said.         /kga

Responding to appeals for help, the Philippine Daily Inquirer is extending its relief to the families affected by the recent volcanic activities of Mayon.

Cash donations may be deposited in the Inquirer Foundation Corp. Banco De Oro (BDO) Current Account No: 007960018860.

Inquiries may be addressed to Inquirer’s Corporate Affairs office through Connie Kalagayan at 897-4426, ckalagayan@inquirer.com.ph and Bianca Kasilag-Macahilig at 897-8808 local 352, bkasilag@inquirer.com.ph.

Source - Inquires