By Rafael D. Frankel
UTAPAO, Thailand -- Heavy air traffic over the quake and tsunami-ravaged Indonesian city of Bandeh Ache had delayed the late-night US military relief flight for hours, so the exhausted American crew of the C-17, wearing coats and hats to ward off the unseasonable cold at the Thai naval base here, hunkered down in the tightly packed cargo plane for a few welcome hours of sleep.
When, in the pre-dawn darkness and slight fog of Monday morning, the four jet engines of the Globemaster III finally fired up for take off, the mood onboard was one of excitement. Air Force servicemen pulled from stations in Okinawa, Guam, and Washington State and South Carolina, hollered and cheered as the 425,000-pound aircraft took to the air, packed with over 20,000 pounds of bottled water, 18,000 pounds of rice, vehicle fuel, a pick up truck, and flood lights.
"It's a privilege to be able to help people, to be an ambassador for our nation," said 1st Lt. Damon Field, 24, from Pleasanton, Ca., who was the co-pilot on the mission. "Hopefully we can let them know we're a generous and compassionate people."
The C-17 crew are among over 18,000 American military personnel assigned to perhaps the largest disaster relief effort the world has ever seen. Over 20 navy ships, 50 helicopters, and 31 Air Force planes are being brought to bare on the disaster areas around the Indian Ocean.
As if exorcising its own demons, Utapao, once a key US installation during the Vietnam War, is now the central operating base in the multi-national relief effort.
The US military is playing a leading role in bringing vital supplies to Sumatra, the area hardest hit by the 9.0 magnitude quake and following tsunami, which washed away entire communities and killed over 100,000 people on that island alone.
Before the C-17 is ready to make its run to Bandeh Ache, ground support is busy loading pallets of supplies by forklift and pick-up truck into its cargo hold. On board, the loadmasters buckle the gear down with rope-nets and carabineers.
Once airborne, only the pilots and load masters have jobs. The rest of the dozen-strong crew needs only a few minutes to discuss the plan of operations once the C-17 lands.
Though they view their mission as a simple, albeit important, supply drop, many of the crew are very much aware of the possible political ramifications their relief efforts.
Mindful of the negative attitudes much of the world—especially Muslim nations like Indonesia—harbor toward the United States in the aftermath of the Iraq War, Staff Sgt. Jeremiah Davis, 25, from Seattle, said he wanted to show the world “the kind of country we are.”
“At the heart of our country is mostly Christianity, but we set aside our religions when it comes to human suffering. When it comes to that, we’re unbiased because we’re all humans,” he said, raising his voice over the engines which prompt the loadmasters to pass out ear plugs to all passengers before C-17 flights.
The decent in to Banda Ache is rapid and with only two windows available to the load masters, it is anyone in the cargo hold’s guess when the Globemaster III might strike ground.
Though the landing is executed flawlessly, it was not easy, with various objects scattered around the strip. “The nature of this destination means we have to push it a bit to get aid where it needs to go,” Lt. Field said.
Upon touchdown in Bandeh Ache, the crew snaps to work, immediately unloading its life-saving cargo to joint American forces on the ground there who ready them for helicopter delivery.
Conditions for the international troops assigned to Bandeh Ache are vastly different than their colleagues at Utapao, just a one-and-a-half hour flight to the northeast. The tents they live in on muddied fields adjacent to the runway; the single-room terminal of the Bandeh Ache airport; and the lack of any buildings which could blight the view of the rice paddies make this camp seem as though it were located on a Pacific island during World War II.
"The conditions aren't pleasant here, but there are a lot of good countries doing a lot of good things," said Marine Master Sgt. Phillip Pena, from Arizona.
Just as he finishes the sentence, a fellow marine pops his head in the tent and screams: “Grab a stretcher!” Pena drops the maps of the helicopter supply sorties he is studying--the U.S. had completed 82 in Sumatra to that point--and does just that, running out the door.
In a rice paddy around 400 yards from the airport runway, what was to be the 83rd helicopter mission is submerged in three feet of water with its rotors sheered and its tail broken in two. Scores of military personnel from the international force are descending on the crash site, running and slipping their way through the flooded rice paddies in the flattering post-sunrise light.
“It went into a flat spin like in ‘Black Hawk Down’ and never recovered,” an Australian G.I. who saw the crash said.
Fortunately all ten crew members from the H-60 Seahawk attached to the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln survive the crash, some walking away almost unscathed.
“The Aussies did an outstanding job, really fast,” Capt. Jeremy Boyd, 33, a pilot of a KC-135R refueling craft who was one of the first on the scene to the crash site said. A team of Australian medics “scaled a barb-wire fence” to get to the downed chopper, he said.
Though the crash shut down helicopter operations for two hours, the C-17 with its crew and minus its cargo had no time to spare in its busy schedule. While the crew goes 12 hours on and 12 hours off, the aircraft is in constant operation.
After only two hours on the ground in Ache, including an hour of down time when crew members were assisting in the helicopter rescue operations, the Globemaster III was back in the air.
Exhausted and somewhat stunned, the crew laid down in the empty cargo hold or sat mostly silent in their seats on the return flight to Utapao.
“It’s always a terrible feeling knowing somebody from a sister service--or anyone for that matter--is going to get hurt,” said Master Sgt. Richard Inman, 40, from Ithaca, who filmed the crash. “But the US military is in the business of taking risks and that’s one of them.”
Despite the injuries sustained to their comrades an hour earlier, none of the C-17 crew questioned whether American forces should be engaged in relief work across the tsunami-stricken areas.
“I’m grateful that no one died, but I’m glad [the crash] didn’t shut down the airfield,” Capt. Boyd said. “There’s a lot more people out there that need our help.”
© 2005 The Boston Globe
Wednesday, January 12, 2005
Monday, January 10, 2005
Relief helicopter crashes, 10 survive
By Rafael D. Frankel, Tribune foreign correspondent Hugh Dellios and Tribune news services contributed to this report
BANDA ACEH, Indonesia -- A U.S. Navy Seahawk SH-60 helicopter crashed Monday morning in a rice paddy as it approached Banda Aceh airport during tsunami relief operations in Sumatra.
All 10 people aboard survived, and all of them suffered injuries. At least five had broken bones, said Capt. Jeremy Boyd, a pilot with the U.S. Air Force, who was at the scene.
The helicopter, one of 17 from the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln participating in relief efforts, was arriving for its first mission of the day. There was no fire or explosion, and the cause of the crash was unclear.
Lt. Cmdr. John Bernard, a Navy spokesman, said the crash appeared to be an accident.
"There was no indication of hostile action taken toward the aircraft," Bernard said.
On Monday, the U.S. military suspended helicopter flights for about two hours after the crash.
The injured were flown out by medevac chopper and taken to the aircraft carrier.
Also in Banda Aceh, a 6.2-magnitude earthquake shook buildings and sent people scrambling from their homes early Monday, but no injuries or damage were reported.
The temblor struck at 5:13 a.m. off the northern coast of Sumatra, according to the U.S. Geological Survey's Web site.
The quake was centered about 9 miles under the seabed in the Indian Ocean, about 40 miles southwest of Banda Aceh.
Sumatra, which was closest to the epicenter of the Dec. 26 9.0-magnitude earthquake that triggered the tsunami, has accounted for about two-thirds of the 150,000 people known to have died in the disaster.
Strong aftershocks and security concerns have provided more challenges for aid workers two weeks after the tsunami.
And in a part of eastern Sri Lanka where international aid workers are helping tsunami victims, two hand grenades hurled in a clash between Christians and Hindus killed at least three people and wounded 37.
No aid workers were near the explosions, officials said.
Two suspected assailants were arrested soon after the attack in a Tamil rebel-controlled area late Saturday, said V.H. Anil, a police officer in the eastern town of Valaichchenai. He said Christians were angry that Hindus demolished a church and may have carried out the attack in retaliation.
© 2005 The Chicago Tribune
BANDA ACEH, Indonesia -- A U.S. Navy Seahawk SH-60 helicopter crashed Monday morning in a rice paddy as it approached Banda Aceh airport during tsunami relief operations in Sumatra.
All 10 people aboard survived, and all of them suffered injuries. At least five had broken bones, said Capt. Jeremy Boyd, a pilot with the U.S. Air Force, who was at the scene.
The helicopter, one of 17 from the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln participating in relief efforts, was arriving for its first mission of the day. There was no fire or explosion, and the cause of the crash was unclear.
Lt. Cmdr. John Bernard, a Navy spokesman, said the crash appeared to be an accident.
"There was no indication of hostile action taken toward the aircraft," Bernard said.
On Monday, the U.S. military suspended helicopter flights for about two hours after the crash.
The injured were flown out by medevac chopper and taken to the aircraft carrier.
Also in Banda Aceh, a 6.2-magnitude earthquake shook buildings and sent people scrambling from their homes early Monday, but no injuries or damage were reported.
The temblor struck at 5:13 a.m. off the northern coast of Sumatra, according to the U.S. Geological Survey's Web site.
The quake was centered about 9 miles under the seabed in the Indian Ocean, about 40 miles southwest of Banda Aceh.
Sumatra, which was closest to the epicenter of the Dec. 26 9.0-magnitude earthquake that triggered the tsunami, has accounted for about two-thirds of the 150,000 people known to have died in the disaster.
Strong aftershocks and security concerns have provided more challenges for aid workers two weeks after the tsunami.
And in a part of eastern Sri Lanka where international aid workers are helping tsunami victims, two hand grenades hurled in a clash between Christians and Hindus killed at least three people and wounded 37.
No aid workers were near the explosions, officials said.
Two suspected assailants were arrested soon after the attack in a Tamil rebel-controlled area late Saturday, said V.H. Anil, a police officer in the eastern town of Valaichchenai. He said Christians were angry that Hindus demolished a church and may have carried out the attack in retaliation.
© 2005 The Chicago Tribune
Saturday, January 08, 2005
Thai hospitality comforts foreigners in need
By Rafael D. Frankel
PHUKET—Dehydrated, exhausted and in shock after walking through nearly a half-mile of mud with not even the shirts on their backs in the hours after the tsunami hit, Clair Knight and her family were only trying to make for higher ground.
Their hotel, The Flora, on Khao Lak beach—on which more people were killed alone than in the September 11 attacks in the United States—was destroyed. And they had seen with their own eyes dozens of their fellow guests “washed away to sea,” Knight said.
At their wit’s end for what to do, they made their way to the flooded out road where they were picked up in an SUV by the Thai owner of the hotel they were staying at that no longer existed.
Kent, 40, from England, her husband, and three children aged 6, 8, and 11, were taken into the hotel owner’s home where they were fed, clothed, and cared for through “a difficult night,” she said at the Phuket airport waiting for a flight back to England.
“They were so wonderful, we didn’t know how to thank them. And we didn’t have anything to give them,” she said, her voice quivering as she put an arm around her son.
In the immediate aftermath of the worst disaster Thailand has ever seen, and indeed through the last week, foreign survivors of the day-after-Christmas tsunami here and the families of those still missing described time and again—often emotionally—the generosity and warm hearts of the Thai people in caring for them when they had nowhere to turn to.
Despite unprecedented damage and loss of life wrecked upon Patong Beach, one of Thailand’s most popular tourist getaways, hundreds of survivors who fled to the hills above town were taken in by local residents there. Panic and grief-stricken people from all over the world who were separated from their families and had lost all their possessions were sheltered during the chaos of the first night after the waves struck, according to accounts of survivors here.
Known as the “Land of Smiles,” Thai hospitality is legendary across Asia, and is one of main themes the Thai Tourism Authority stresses when marketing Thailand to foreign clientele. In this case, they seem to have outdone even themselves.
Many stories have emerged of foreigners who were pulled from the waves by Thai people, often at their own peril.
“The local people rescued me, put me in a blanket, fed me, got me to a hospital,” said Ron Bombiger, 48, from Los Angeles, who was pulled out of the wave by a Thai man.
Bombiger talked at length about the generosity of the Thais from his bed in Bangkok Phuket Hospital where he was recovering from multiple lacerations and bruises. “They won’t stop at anything to help you,” he said.
Meanwhile, foreign diplomats have also heaped praise on the Thai government’s response to the disaster.
Faced with thousands of casualties, unprecedented economic destruction, and lacking the resources of many wealthier countries, Thailand’s performance in its relief efforts has been “phenomenally impressive in a very short time,” Australian Ambassador William Patterson said.
Though Thailand was forced to deal with outbreaks of SARS and Bird Flu in the last two years, both of which required rapid responses from the government, they have never before dealt with a disaster on this scale.
Touring one of the make-shift morgues Thailand is constructing to house thousands of bodies until they are identified by forensics teams, British Ambassador David Full said Thai authorities had gone “above and beyond” any reasonable expectations under the circumstances.
“They’re being innovative, sensitive to cultural concerns, there’s a system to it and most important, they are being transparent,” Full said.
Unlike the other countries afflicted by the Dec. 26 tsunami, the foreign death toll here is slightly more than half of the over 5,000 confirmed dead. There are around 6,000 more people in total believed missing.
In many cases, foreigners were getting preferential treatment at hospitals, being given beds or operated on while Thais waited outside, Swedish Ambassador Johans Hafstrom said.
“I’m amazed. I think without them we would be in a much worse situation than we are,” the ambassador said.
Foreign Ministry Spokesman Sihasak Phuangketkeow said all patients, whatever their nationality, were being treated equally. The genuine hospitality was “maybe just the ‘Thai way,’” he said. “We feel a special compassion for the people we consider our guests and feel that whatever we can do, we will be glad to do.”
For Swede Lena Fallgren, 44, who’s 16-year-old daughter is missing and presumed dead, the Thai way had made a real difference, she said.
"Wherever we go they always smile and ask how we are," she said. "They look in our eyes. It makes the heart warm to feel that."
© 2005 Rafael D. Frankel and The Christian Science Monitor
PHUKET—Dehydrated, exhausted and in shock after walking through nearly a half-mile of mud with not even the shirts on their backs in the hours after the tsunami hit, Clair Knight and her family were only trying to make for higher ground.
Their hotel, The Flora, on Khao Lak beach—on which more people were killed alone than in the September 11 attacks in the United States—was destroyed. And they had seen with their own eyes dozens of their fellow guests “washed away to sea,” Knight said.
At their wit’s end for what to do, they made their way to the flooded out road where they were picked up in an SUV by the Thai owner of the hotel they were staying at that no longer existed.
Kent, 40, from England, her husband, and three children aged 6, 8, and 11, were taken into the hotel owner’s home where they were fed, clothed, and cared for through “a difficult night,” she said at the Phuket airport waiting for a flight back to England.
“They were so wonderful, we didn’t know how to thank them. And we didn’t have anything to give them,” she said, her voice quivering as she put an arm around her son.
In the immediate aftermath of the worst disaster Thailand has ever seen, and indeed through the last week, foreign survivors of the day-after-Christmas tsunami here and the families of those still missing described time and again—often emotionally—the generosity and warm hearts of the Thai people in caring for them when they had nowhere to turn to.
Despite unprecedented damage and loss of life wrecked upon Patong Beach, one of Thailand’s most popular tourist getaways, hundreds of survivors who fled to the hills above town were taken in by local residents there. Panic and grief-stricken people from all over the world who were separated from their families and had lost all their possessions were sheltered during the chaos of the first night after the waves struck, according to accounts of survivors here.
Known as the “Land of Smiles,” Thai hospitality is legendary across Asia, and is one of main themes the Thai Tourism Authority stresses when marketing Thailand to foreign clientele. In this case, they seem to have outdone even themselves.
Many stories have emerged of foreigners who were pulled from the waves by Thai people, often at their own peril.
“The local people rescued me, put me in a blanket, fed me, got me to a hospital,” said Ron Bombiger, 48, from Los Angeles, who was pulled out of the wave by a Thai man.
Bombiger talked at length about the generosity of the Thais from his bed in Bangkok Phuket Hospital where he was recovering from multiple lacerations and bruises. “They won’t stop at anything to help you,” he said.
Meanwhile, foreign diplomats have also heaped praise on the Thai government’s response to the disaster.
Faced with thousands of casualties, unprecedented economic destruction, and lacking the resources of many wealthier countries, Thailand’s performance in its relief efforts has been “phenomenally impressive in a very short time,” Australian Ambassador William Patterson said.
Though Thailand was forced to deal with outbreaks of SARS and Bird Flu in the last two years, both of which required rapid responses from the government, they have never before dealt with a disaster on this scale.
Touring one of the make-shift morgues Thailand is constructing to house thousands of bodies until they are identified by forensics teams, British Ambassador David Full said Thai authorities had gone “above and beyond” any reasonable expectations under the circumstances.
“They’re being innovative, sensitive to cultural concerns, there’s a system to it and most important, they are being transparent,” Full said.
Unlike the other countries afflicted by the Dec. 26 tsunami, the foreign death toll here is slightly more than half of the over 5,000 confirmed dead. There are around 6,000 more people in total believed missing.
In many cases, foreigners were getting preferential treatment at hospitals, being given beds or operated on while Thais waited outside, Swedish Ambassador Johans Hafstrom said.
“I’m amazed. I think without them we would be in a much worse situation than we are,” the ambassador said.
Foreign Ministry Spokesman Sihasak Phuangketkeow said all patients, whatever their nationality, were being treated equally. The genuine hospitality was “maybe just the ‘Thai way,’” he said. “We feel a special compassion for the people we consider our guests and feel that whatever we can do, we will be glad to do.”
For Swede Lena Fallgren, 44, who’s 16-year-old daughter is missing and presumed dead, the Thai way had made a real difference, she said.
"Wherever we go they always smile and ask how we are," she said. "They look in our eyes. It makes the heart warm to feel that."
© 2005 Rafael D. Frankel and The Christian Science Monitor
Friday, January 07, 2005
Thai resort islands aim to rebuild and revive
By Rafael D. Frankel
KOH PHI PHI, Thailand—In one fell swoop from an agitated sea, this island paradise made famous by an expensive Hollywood production was laid to utter ruin.
Ten days after 25-foot tidal waves struck Phi Phi town here from both sides of the hour-glass shaped island, dozens of sunken boats still line the pier-side shore, and the main drag of shops is a pile of broken concrete and twisted corrugated metal.
The sprawling complex of 200 wooden bungalows that was the P.P. Princess Resort is a series of debris piles each higher than the last, waiting to be lit ablaze by clean-up crews covering the island Wednesday.
Though the human toll wrought upon Phi Phi is hard enough for residents to bare—around 2,500 dead according to the local district chief—local survivors are struggling with the reality of what comes next.
Unlike for the foreigners who lived through the tsunami and who have returned home to tell their stories, for Arirok Kongkhoreap, who was born on Phi Phi 27 years ago when it was little more than a quaint fishing village, this is home.
Though her older sister, Patapaa, was trapped and killed in their house when the waves hit, Kongkhoreap said she wants to stay and rebuild her family’s life here, which goes back generations.
“Of course we want to work here again,” Kongkhoreap’s cousin, Matrien Seakdeeya, 50, said. She gestured toward bulldozers clearing rubble in the background: “There is nothing else to do.”
Given the level of destruction here, such determination will be needed if Phi Phi is ever going to return to its boisterous self.
But that is exactly what will happen by one year from now if District Chief Ni Yom is correct in his assessment of the reconstruction effort ahead.
“Next year come back. Everything will be rebuilt,” he said, standing in front of what used to be the Phi Phi Bakery, a breakfast café popular with backpackers and now only recognizable by its sign that remains hanging from the second story canopy.
TOURISTS ALREADY RETURNING
Across a 50-mile stretch of the Andaman sea in the direction of the main land, tourists are already coming back to Phuket Island.
At Tuesday dusk on Patong Beach there, two Irish children kicked a soccer ball laughing and calling to each other to kick it harder. In the background, yachts bobbed slowly in the bay as the sun glistened off the calm waters on its way to another beautiful sunset, the likes of which has brought thousands of tourists here for the better part of two decades.
During the day, hundreds of vacationers took advantage of the tropical heat, tanning on the beach and dipping themselves in the tepid turquoise waters of the Andaman Sea.
If it were not for the gutted resorts and downed electric lines directly behind the behind the beach, one might never have known a tsunami came crashing through so recently, obliterating nearly everything in its path.
“My tour company asked if I wanted to return early,” said Desmet Romain, 42, from Belgium, as he walked along the beach with a friend. “But I don’t want to cut my vacation short and go back home where it’s so cold.”
If life is to resume its course across Thailand’s decimated shores, and the economy to recover, it will require more such people to come. Tourism alone accounts for 6 percent of Thailand’s total economy, and in places like Patong and Koh Phi Phi, it is the life blood.
Nevertheless, those returning to the beaches here are meeting mixed reactions from the locals. While some appreciate tourists coming and staying despite obvious inconveniences, others say they are being callous to vacation here in the midst of a community in mourning.
If people want to come back, they should wait “two or three months until the memory is not so hard,” said Panya Suwannarot, a waiter at the Novotel Patong Resort. “If they want to come now, maybe they can help build everything again, or give food.”
While that opinion has traction on Phuket Island and in some of the other damaged areas on Thailand’s Southwest coast, it is exactly the opposite of what the government is saying.
Thailand would not be initiating any “hard sell” for tourists to return here, Government Spokesman Jakrapob Penkair said, but authorities very much hope tourists will come in as many numbers as possible.
“We base our life on sharing and accept fate,” Penkair said, adding that Thais are not the type of people to harbor ill will toward guests. “Those who survived are thinking about the future, and we need people to come back.”
Boonlert Nakpalad, 27, who lost most of his work as a taxi driver when his main client, Club Med, was heavily damaged in the waves, agreed.
“It’s very good for whoever is here. We all need the money,” he said, echoing a refrain that will likely be heard here for some time to come.
LONLEY SANDS
But on Maya Bay in Koh Phi Phi, where tourists usually flock by the hundreds this time of year to snorkel in the translucent waters off “The Beach” which Leonardo DiCaprio made famous to the world, the late Wednesday afternoon saw the only boat which had made the journey there preparing to shove off.
With no development allowed, there was nothing for the tsunami to destroy on The Beach. And without the massive human presence, it resembles its unspoiled movie persona more than ever.
Before leaving with his ten-person party of family and friends, Robert Ek, 50, from Finland, who said he comes here “every couple years,” offered a piece of advice to tourists. “The worst thing people can do is abandon Thailand,” he said, as his Phuket-based tour guide Tanyaporn Jalannsuk, 39, nodded in agreement.
Then his boat pulled away from The Beach, leaving the millions of fine white sands so accustomed to company this time of year alone with the small waves which echoed off the steep, surrounding lime stone cliffs.
© 2005 Rafael D. Frankel and The Chicago Tribune
KOH PHI PHI, Thailand—In one fell swoop from an agitated sea, this island paradise made famous by an expensive Hollywood production was laid to utter ruin.
Ten days after 25-foot tidal waves struck Phi Phi town here from both sides of the hour-glass shaped island, dozens of sunken boats still line the pier-side shore, and the main drag of shops is a pile of broken concrete and twisted corrugated metal.
The sprawling complex of 200 wooden bungalows that was the P.P. Princess Resort is a series of debris piles each higher than the last, waiting to be lit ablaze by clean-up crews covering the island Wednesday.
Though the human toll wrought upon Phi Phi is hard enough for residents to bare—around 2,500 dead according to the local district chief—local survivors are struggling with the reality of what comes next.
Unlike for the foreigners who lived through the tsunami and who have returned home to tell their stories, for Arirok Kongkhoreap, who was born on Phi Phi 27 years ago when it was little more than a quaint fishing village, this is home.
Though her older sister, Patapaa, was trapped and killed in their house when the waves hit, Kongkhoreap said she wants to stay and rebuild her family’s life here, which goes back generations.
“Of course we want to work here again,” Kongkhoreap’s cousin, Matrien Seakdeeya, 50, said. She gestured toward bulldozers clearing rubble in the background: “There is nothing else to do.”
Given the level of destruction here, such determination will be needed if Phi Phi is ever going to return to its boisterous self.
But that is exactly what will happen by one year from now if District Chief Ni Yom is correct in his assessment of the reconstruction effort ahead.
“Next year come back. Everything will be rebuilt,” he said, standing in front of what used to be the Phi Phi Bakery, a breakfast café popular with backpackers and now only recognizable by its sign that remains hanging from the second story canopy.
TOURISTS ALREADY RETURNING
Across a 50-mile stretch of the Andaman sea in the direction of the main land, tourists are already coming back to Phuket Island.
At Tuesday dusk on Patong Beach there, two Irish children kicked a soccer ball laughing and calling to each other to kick it harder. In the background, yachts bobbed slowly in the bay as the sun glistened off the calm waters on its way to another beautiful sunset, the likes of which has brought thousands of tourists here for the better part of two decades.
During the day, hundreds of vacationers took advantage of the tropical heat, tanning on the beach and dipping themselves in the tepid turquoise waters of the Andaman Sea.
If it were not for the gutted resorts and downed electric lines directly behind the behind the beach, one might never have known a tsunami came crashing through so recently, obliterating nearly everything in its path.
“My tour company asked if I wanted to return early,” said Desmet Romain, 42, from Belgium, as he walked along the beach with a friend. “But I don’t want to cut my vacation short and go back home where it’s so cold.”
If life is to resume its course across Thailand’s decimated shores, and the economy to recover, it will require more such people to come. Tourism alone accounts for 6 percent of Thailand’s total economy, and in places like Patong and Koh Phi Phi, it is the life blood.
Nevertheless, those returning to the beaches here are meeting mixed reactions from the locals. While some appreciate tourists coming and staying despite obvious inconveniences, others say they are being callous to vacation here in the midst of a community in mourning.
If people want to come back, they should wait “two or three months until the memory is not so hard,” said Panya Suwannarot, a waiter at the Novotel Patong Resort. “If they want to come now, maybe they can help build everything again, or give food.”
While that opinion has traction on Phuket Island and in some of the other damaged areas on Thailand’s Southwest coast, it is exactly the opposite of what the government is saying.
Thailand would not be initiating any “hard sell” for tourists to return here, Government Spokesman Jakrapob Penkair said, but authorities very much hope tourists will come in as many numbers as possible.
“We base our life on sharing and accept fate,” Penkair said, adding that Thais are not the type of people to harbor ill will toward guests. “Those who survived are thinking about the future, and we need people to come back.”
Boonlert Nakpalad, 27, who lost most of his work as a taxi driver when his main client, Club Med, was heavily damaged in the waves, agreed.
“It’s very good for whoever is here. We all need the money,” he said, echoing a refrain that will likely be heard here for some time to come.
LONLEY SANDS
But on Maya Bay in Koh Phi Phi, where tourists usually flock by the hundreds this time of year to snorkel in the translucent waters off “The Beach” which Leonardo DiCaprio made famous to the world, the late Wednesday afternoon saw the only boat which had made the journey there preparing to shove off.
With no development allowed, there was nothing for the tsunami to destroy on The Beach. And without the massive human presence, it resembles its unspoiled movie persona more than ever.
Before leaving with his ten-person party of family and friends, Robert Ek, 50, from Finland, who said he comes here “every couple years,” offered a piece of advice to tourists. “The worst thing people can do is abandon Thailand,” he said, as his Phuket-based tour guide Tanyaporn Jalannsuk, 39, nodded in agreement.
Then his boat pulled away from The Beach, leaving the millions of fine white sands so accustomed to company this time of year alone with the small waves which echoed off the steep, surrounding lime stone cliffs.
© 2005 Rafael D. Frankel and The Chicago Tribune
Wednesday, January 05, 2005
Tsunami orphan draws international attention
By Rafael D. Frankel
PHUKET, Thailand—“Please take care of this child. I cannot feed him. The parents died from the sea in Patong. If you cannot take care of him please send him to an orphanage.”
With that note written neatly in Thai laying next to him the day after the tsunami hit this island, hospital workers found what they guessed was a ten-day-old baby lying in the grass of Suan Luan Public Park after being alerted to his presence by local residents.
Named Luke Kluen, “Baby Wave” in English, by the nurses at Vachaira Public Hospital where he is being cared for, he was awake and hungry on Tuesday as On-A-Nong Chumrak, 30, fed him a bottle.
Little more than a foot tall, Baby Wave has a full head of spiky black hair that stands high on his head. His eyes slowly took in the surroundings of the nursing quarters which he has alone to himself among all the babies in the nursery here.
His is a special case, and Baby Wave has not been a burden to anyone here, Chumrak, a nurse at Vachaira hospital for ten years said, smiling. Taking his head entirely into her cupped hand, she sit him up for a burping. “Everyone is so happy he is here.”
As word of his survival and circumstance has spread around Phuket, Baby Wave has begun receiving gifts from local residents. Baby powder and food, diapers, lotions, stuffed animals, a mobile, and even an orchid were sent to the hospital for him.
The hospital staff thinks it was local villagers who found him, though they are not sure. They assume it was someone who was too poor to care for him, Chumrak said.
As a society still based very much on close family ties, children in orphanages are not as common in Thailand as in many countries around the world. Children who lose their parents here are invariably cared for by members of the extended family.
Accordingly, the hospital will keep Baby Wave for at least a month in the hopes that a family member who hears the story comes to claim him.
However with the tsunami destroying entire families in Phuket, they are not sure if anyone will come. If that is the case, it appears Baby Wave will not be going to an orphanage like dozens of other Thai children here—the government has no firm count—who lost entire families the day after Christmas.
“Many people want to adopt him,” Chumrak said. “Already we have about 20 families asking to take him. Even one from Canada.”
© 2005 Rafael D. Frankel
PHUKET, Thailand—“Please take care of this child. I cannot feed him. The parents died from the sea in Patong. If you cannot take care of him please send him to an orphanage.”
With that note written neatly in Thai laying next to him the day after the tsunami hit this island, hospital workers found what they guessed was a ten-day-old baby lying in the grass of Suan Luan Public Park after being alerted to his presence by local residents.
Named Luke Kluen, “Baby Wave” in English, by the nurses at Vachaira Public Hospital where he is being cared for, he was awake and hungry on Tuesday as On-A-Nong Chumrak, 30, fed him a bottle.
Little more than a foot tall, Baby Wave has a full head of spiky black hair that stands high on his head. His eyes slowly took in the surroundings of the nursing quarters which he has alone to himself among all the babies in the nursery here.
His is a special case, and Baby Wave has not been a burden to anyone here, Chumrak, a nurse at Vachaira hospital for ten years said, smiling. Taking his head entirely into her cupped hand, she sit him up for a burping. “Everyone is so happy he is here.”
As word of his survival and circumstance has spread around Phuket, Baby Wave has begun receiving gifts from local residents. Baby powder and food, diapers, lotions, stuffed animals, a mobile, and even an orchid were sent to the hospital for him.
The hospital staff thinks it was local villagers who found him, though they are not sure. They assume it was someone who was too poor to care for him, Chumrak said.
As a society still based very much on close family ties, children in orphanages are not as common in Thailand as in many countries around the world. Children who lose their parents here are invariably cared for by members of the extended family.
Accordingly, the hospital will keep Baby Wave for at least a month in the hopes that a family member who hears the story comes to claim him.
However with the tsunami destroying entire families in Phuket, they are not sure if anyone will come. If that is the case, it appears Baby Wave will not be going to an orphanage like dozens of other Thai children here—the government has no firm count—who lost entire families the day after Christmas.
“Many people want to adopt him,” Chumrak said. “Already we have about 20 families asking to take him. Even one from Canada.”
© 2005 Rafael D. Frankel
Tuesday, January 04, 2005
Distraught kin ignore travel advisory
By Rafael D. Frankel
BANGKOK—Though asked by their governments to stay home rather than come to Thailand to search for missing loved ones, hundreds of family members from dozens of countries around the world have begun traveling here and to the stricken areas on Thailand’s Southwestern coast to do just that.
“I’m just here to offer support, what else can I do?” Matts Wallstrom, 50, from Sweden, said at Bangkok Phuket Hospital as his co-worker looked for his daughter, Anna Zellin, among the lists of the injured.
Like most of the people here arriving to begin what will likely be a search full of frustration and grief, he felt compelled to make the trip.
For those like Wallstrom that chose to ignore their advice, foreign missions here are nonetheless providing what services they can.
Anders Erikson, the press secretary for the Swedish consulate in Phuket, said there were dozens of Swedish relief workers on the ground there and in Bangkok. Social workers, government officials, and doctors from the government, Red Cross and Swedish Church, among others were all there to assist the families.
Nevertheless, government representatives here are trying—albeit sensitively—to dampen expectations of families back home and already here that they will find what they are looking for.
“We understand the natural impulse of families coming here,” Canadian Ambassador Denis Comeau said. “That being said, there really is not much comfort we can give them, and not much we can do either.”
In addition to advising that the chances of finding a loved one among the survivors in the hospital are extremely remote, foreign missions are telling their citizens not to go to the three make-shift morgues set up by the Thai government in the stricken areas since visually identifying the bodies so long after their deaths was all but impossible.
“They have to wait for the results of the forensics teams, and this will take many, many months,” a spokesman for the embassy of Germany, which has around 1,000 of its nationals here missing, said.
While foreign governments have struggled with the demands of their citizens and the logistical challenges thrown upon embassies here, survivors and family members, along with the diplomats themselves, heaped praise on the Thai people and government for their efforts during the crisis.
“The local people rescued me, put me in a blanket, fed me, got me to a hospital,” said Ron Bombinger, 48, from Los Angeles, who was pulled out of the wave by a Thai man. “They won’t stop at anything to help you.”
Many foreign survivors of the disaster told such stories, adding that the night after the waves struck, local residents opened their doors to panic and grief-stricken people from all over the world who had nowhere to stay and had lost all their possessions.
Faced with unprecedented destruction, thousands of casualties, and without the resources of many wealthier countries, Thailand’s performance in its relief efforts has been “phenomenally impressive in a very short time,” Australian Ambassador William Patterson said.
Unlike the other countries afflicted by the Dec. 26 tsunami, the foreign death toll here may be as high as half of the nearly 5,000 confirmed dead and 6,000 more believed missing.
In many cases, foreigners were getting preferential treatment at hospitals, being given beds or operated on while Thais waited outside, Swedish Ambassador Johans Hafstrom said.
“I’m amazed. I think without them we would be in a much worse situation than we are,” the ambassador said.
Foreign Ministry Spokesman Sihasak Phuangketkeow said such hospitality was “maybe just the ‘Thai way.’ We feel a special compassion for the people we consider our guests and feel that whatever we can do, we will be glad to do.”
© 2005 Rafael D. Frankel and The Chicago Tribune
BANGKOK—Though asked by their governments to stay home rather than come to Thailand to search for missing loved ones, hundreds of family members from dozens of countries around the world have begun traveling here and to the stricken areas on Thailand’s Southwestern coast to do just that.
“I’m just here to offer support, what else can I do?” Matts Wallstrom, 50, from Sweden, said at Bangkok Phuket Hospital as his co-worker looked for his daughter, Anna Zellin, among the lists of the injured.
Like most of the people here arriving to begin what will likely be a search full of frustration and grief, he felt compelled to make the trip.
For those like Wallstrom that chose to ignore their advice, foreign missions here are nonetheless providing what services they can.
Anders Erikson, the press secretary for the Swedish consulate in Phuket, said there were dozens of Swedish relief workers on the ground there and in Bangkok. Social workers, government officials, and doctors from the government, Red Cross and Swedish Church, among others were all there to assist the families.
Nevertheless, government representatives here are trying—albeit sensitively—to dampen expectations of families back home and already here that they will find what they are looking for.
“We understand the natural impulse of families coming here,” Canadian Ambassador Denis Comeau said. “That being said, there really is not much comfort we can give them, and not much we can do either.”
In addition to advising that the chances of finding a loved one among the survivors in the hospital are extremely remote, foreign missions are telling their citizens not to go to the three make-shift morgues set up by the Thai government in the stricken areas since visually identifying the bodies so long after their deaths was all but impossible.
“They have to wait for the results of the forensics teams, and this will take many, many months,” a spokesman for the embassy of Germany, which has around 1,000 of its nationals here missing, said.
While foreign governments have struggled with the demands of their citizens and the logistical challenges thrown upon embassies here, survivors and family members, along with the diplomats themselves, heaped praise on the Thai people and government for their efforts during the crisis.
“The local people rescued me, put me in a blanket, fed me, got me to a hospital,” said Ron Bombinger, 48, from Los Angeles, who was pulled out of the wave by a Thai man. “They won’t stop at anything to help you.”
Many foreign survivors of the disaster told such stories, adding that the night after the waves struck, local residents opened their doors to panic and grief-stricken people from all over the world who had nowhere to stay and had lost all their possessions.
Faced with unprecedented destruction, thousands of casualties, and without the resources of many wealthier countries, Thailand’s performance in its relief efforts has been “phenomenally impressive in a very short time,” Australian Ambassador William Patterson said.
Unlike the other countries afflicted by the Dec. 26 tsunami, the foreign death toll here may be as high as half of the nearly 5,000 confirmed dead and 6,000 more believed missing.
In many cases, foreigners were getting preferential treatment at hospitals, being given beds or operated on while Thais waited outside, Swedish Ambassador Johans Hafstrom said.
“I’m amazed. I think without them we would be in a much worse situation than we are,” the ambassador said.
Foreign Ministry Spokesman Sihasak Phuangketkeow said such hospitality was “maybe just the ‘Thai way.’ We feel a special compassion for the people we consider our guests and feel that whatever we can do, we will be glad to do.”
© 2005 Rafael D. Frankel and The Chicago Tribune
Monday, January 03, 2005
Devastation unifies array of helping hands
By Rafael D. Frankel
PHUKET, Thailand—Nishan Padayachee and Gayle Beckwith do not have much in common.
Padayachee, 24, from Canada, was partying at the full moon festival with 20,000 other back packers and travelers on Koh Phangang, an unaffected island off Thailand’s gulf coast, the day after Christmas. Beckwith, 52, a missionary from Iowa who lives with her family in Bangkok, was enjoying a quiet dinner with family friends the same day.
But despite their differences, both of them said the decision to come down to Thailand’s Southwest coast to assist in the relief effort here was a given.
“My family prayed about it, and all of us knew we had to come. It wasn’t a hard decision,” said Beckwith, who made the all-night drive down here the night the disaster struck with her husband and two children, 23 and 16.
Though volunteers here from Thailand and around the world share widely varying faiths, languages, and ages, all of the thousands who have come to assist with the difficult relief efforts came for the same reasons, they said in interviews here on New Year’s Eve and Day.
“It was so hard to accept everything that was happening,” Padayachee said after spending Dec. 31 moving and bagging decomposing bodies at Watt Yan Yao 60 miles north of here. “I felt like the only thing I could do was to come down here and help.”
For many of the Thai volunteers, who have seen the devastation wrecked upon their own country, and who’s own people have not only died but lost their livelihoods, there was also the sense of providing everyone caught up in the tragedy with a sense that they were cared for.
They were also responding by a plea from revered Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej to show a united front of generosity. “We’re ready to help those in trouble, with dedication, mercy and sincerity, no matter whether they are Thais or foreigners,” he said in his New Year’s Eve address to the nation.
Over the last week, Somboon Petnuk, 57, a native of Phuket, has cooked meals at the disaster relief center, held hands in hospitals, and distributed free clothes. A fruit stand operator at a local school, Petnuk said she didn’t have any particular skills to offer, but she wanted to teach all the children at the school about helping people.
“Everyone is hurting right now. We have to make everyone feel like they are family so we can all care about each other and help each other,” she said on New Year’s Day at the disaster relief center at Phuket Town Hall.
As Buddhists with a different outlook on death, the Thais have in general taken a much different attitude about the disaster than their foreign counter parts. While local families are grieving just the same, the Thai volunteers’ less somber mind-set has at times baffled the foreign volunteers, said Marco Buch, 29 from Germany.
However they have also “made me smile when I needed it,” Buch said. “They are always trying to make us feel better.”
And if they were meaning to be an extended family during dark times, they had succeeded, said Swede Max Alder Ring, who’s country may have lost as many as 3,000 people here. “It’s amazing how nice people can be to each other,” Ring, 20, said. “I just wish it didn’t take something like this to bring it out.”
Many of the foreign volunteers were themselves caught up in the day-after-Christmas tsunami yet emerged mostly unscathed.
A feeling of being saved by fate, or “some higher power,” contributed to Carl Johnston’s decision to help out. The 32-year-old Canadian emergency medical technician also said there was also a feeling of guilt that he survived while others he was with on a beach in Krabi province were carried out to see in front of his eyes.
“Next New Year’s, when I look back on the year, I want to feel like I did everything I could,” he said, taking a break from helping an Australian forensics team identify bodies at Watt Yan Yao on Dec. 31. He and a friend who were volunteering there were sleeping on the floor of a local shop.
Back in Phuket, after days of grueling work in Patong, Takua Pa, and Khao Lak, Ring, Buch, and Padayachee shared a drink together at midnight of Jan. 1 to mark the new year.
Having seen things together none ever imagined possible, and helped those stricken with grief, the three, who would be going their own ways Jan. 3, said they would stay in touch in the future. “I don’t know if anyone else could really understand if I talked to them about this,” Ring said.
And when asked what they had taken away from the experience, Ring and Buch nodded in silent agreement at Padayachee’s answer: “Life is short.”
© 2005 Rafael D. Frankel and The Chicago Tribune
PHUKET, Thailand—Nishan Padayachee and Gayle Beckwith do not have much in common.
Padayachee, 24, from Canada, was partying at the full moon festival with 20,000 other back packers and travelers on Koh Phangang, an unaffected island off Thailand’s gulf coast, the day after Christmas. Beckwith, 52, a missionary from Iowa who lives with her family in Bangkok, was enjoying a quiet dinner with family friends the same day.
But despite their differences, both of them said the decision to come down to Thailand’s Southwest coast to assist in the relief effort here was a given.
“My family prayed about it, and all of us knew we had to come. It wasn’t a hard decision,” said Beckwith, who made the all-night drive down here the night the disaster struck with her husband and two children, 23 and 16.
Though volunteers here from Thailand and around the world share widely varying faiths, languages, and ages, all of the thousands who have come to assist with the difficult relief efforts came for the same reasons, they said in interviews here on New Year’s Eve and Day.
“It was so hard to accept everything that was happening,” Padayachee said after spending Dec. 31 moving and bagging decomposing bodies at Watt Yan Yao 60 miles north of here. “I felt like the only thing I could do was to come down here and help.”
For many of the Thai volunteers, who have seen the devastation wrecked upon their own country, and who’s own people have not only died but lost their livelihoods, there was also the sense of providing everyone caught up in the tragedy with a sense that they were cared for.
They were also responding by a plea from revered Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej to show a united front of generosity. “We’re ready to help those in trouble, with dedication, mercy and sincerity, no matter whether they are Thais or foreigners,” he said in his New Year’s Eve address to the nation.
Over the last week, Somboon Petnuk, 57, a native of Phuket, has cooked meals at the disaster relief center, held hands in hospitals, and distributed free clothes. A fruit stand operator at a local school, Petnuk said she didn’t have any particular skills to offer, but she wanted to teach all the children at the school about helping people.
“Everyone is hurting right now. We have to make everyone feel like they are family so we can all care about each other and help each other,” she said on New Year’s Day at the disaster relief center at Phuket Town Hall.
As Buddhists with a different outlook on death, the Thais have in general taken a much different attitude about the disaster than their foreign counter parts. While local families are grieving just the same, the Thai volunteers’ less somber mind-set has at times baffled the foreign volunteers, said Marco Buch, 29 from Germany.
However they have also “made me smile when I needed it,” Buch said. “They are always trying to make us feel better.”
And if they were meaning to be an extended family during dark times, they had succeeded, said Swede Max Alder Ring, who’s country may have lost as many as 3,000 people here. “It’s amazing how nice people can be to each other,” Ring, 20, said. “I just wish it didn’t take something like this to bring it out.”
Many of the foreign volunteers were themselves caught up in the day-after-Christmas tsunami yet emerged mostly unscathed.
A feeling of being saved by fate, or “some higher power,” contributed to Carl Johnston’s decision to help out. The 32-year-old Canadian emergency medical technician also said there was also a feeling of guilt that he survived while others he was with on a beach in Krabi province were carried out to see in front of his eyes.
“Next New Year’s, when I look back on the year, I want to feel like I did everything I could,” he said, taking a break from helping an Australian forensics team identify bodies at Watt Yan Yao on Dec. 31. He and a friend who were volunteering there were sleeping on the floor of a local shop.
Back in Phuket, after days of grueling work in Patong, Takua Pa, and Khao Lak, Ring, Buch, and Padayachee shared a drink together at midnight of Jan. 1 to mark the new year.
Having seen things together none ever imagined possible, and helped those stricken with grief, the three, who would be going their own ways Jan. 3, said they would stay in touch in the future. “I don’t know if anyone else could really understand if I talked to them about this,” Ring said.
And when asked what they had taken away from the experience, Ring and Buch nodded in silent agreement at Padayachee’s answer: “Life is short.”
© 2005 Rafael D. Frankel and The Chicago Tribune
Saturday, January 01, 2005
Temple becomes a morgue
By Rafael D. Frankel
TAKUA PA, Thailand—On the last day of the year at Watt Yan Yao, the Buddhist temple-turned-mortuary, the bodies just kept coming.
While forensics teams from Thailand, Australia and Holland begun the work to identify badly decomposed remains, the 1,600 corpses lined in rows in nearly every corner of the Watt on Thursday were joined by 2,000 more on Friday, bringing the total number of dead from near-by Khao Lak Beach alone to greater than those killed in the September 11 attacks in the United States.
With the Andaman Sea still disgorging bodies five days after the tsunamis struck, the death toll—though smaller than in the other hard hit countries—continued to climb higher than anyone here originally thought possible: 5,043 dead, 10,459 injured, with 6,479 still missing.
The ever-increasing toll the tidal waves wrecked upon Thailand did not leave many in the mood to celebrate the new year here.
While some five-star resorts went ahead with slightly scaled back versions of their previously scheduled gala dinners, most of the celebrations in the south, and indeed across Thailand, were cancelled.
A candle light vigil was held in Phuket Town Hall, which is serving as the disaster relief center here, to mark 2005. In Bangkok, and in towns across the northern regions of the country, many people wore black.
Supone Sengsahus, 43, a taxi driver in Phuket, said he was taking his family to a Buddhist temple “to make merit for the Thai and foreigners” who died the day after Christmas.
In a reversal from what Thai officials said for the first five days since the disaster, when they claimed the vast majority of those killed were locals, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Friday that at least 2,230 of the dead were foreigners. Most of them were Europeans taking a tropical Christmas vacation.
“The fact is that the hardest hit areas were frequented by foreigners,” Foreign Ministry Spokesman Sihasak Phuangketkeow said. “The whole country feels sorry for everyone that died, Thai and foreigner both.”
With the magnitude of the tsunami now sinking in, officials and aid workers from foreign governments were arriving by the dozens from many of at least 35 countries which had nationals killed and injured here.
Sweden, which now believes it may have lost from 2,000 to 3,500 people in the tidal waves, had teams from its Foreign Affairs Ministry inspecting Watt Yan Yao Friday trying to arrange the logistics for hundreds, if not thousands, of relatives expected to make the trip here to try to find missing family members.
The Swedish government has come under blistering criticism at home by many who felt its reaction to the tragedy was callously sluggish.
“I agree, we were too slow,” said Nina Brungstedt, a member of Sweden’s inspection team. “The whole country is in mourning. Everybody lost someone or knows of someone that is missing.”
While the United States was also criticized for acting slowly and being stingy with its aid in the aftermath of the disaster, its relief contributions began Friday with supply runs to the stricken areas on Friday by C-130 aircraft.
Those runs were just the first salvo in what was to be an “enormous and continuous” relief effort by the American military, a U.S. embassy spokesman said.
Two hours east of Bangkok, the Utapao Airbase, which the United States used for bombing runs during the Vietnam War, was transforming into the coordinating center for the U.S. relief effort in South Asia, the spokesman said. An entire carrier fleet, forensics teams, and other relief specialists were expected shortly.
Meanwhile, the Watt in this small Thai village—where the smell of decomposing bodies inundates even the local 7-11s—saw its front lawn usurped by a make-shift mortuary of cargo holds. It is one of the three special morgues being built in Thailand to house the bodies of the dead where Thai and foreign forensics teams began sifting through the thousands of corpses in an effort to determine which bodies were locals and which were not.
Though Foreign Ministry Spokesman Sihasak said the bodies would be given the same treatment regardless of nationality, at Watt Yan Yao, foreign bodies were being stored in the recently installed air-conditioned cargo holds while Thai bodies were being bagged with a block of dry ice set on top of them until more holds arrived.
After five days of decomposition, the identification process was often slow. And with the dead continuing to be brought in by the truck load, Peter Knox, a senior constable who is leading the Australian forensics team here, said they “had no idea when they would be finished.”
“The scale is absolutely massive,” Knox said, his team having been deployed to Bali after the Oct. 2002 bombings there which killed 202 people.
After separating the bodies, the forensics teams will begin taking skin samples to create a DNA database of all the dead here, a Dutch forensic team member who wished his name withheld said. People with missing family members could then have their DNA checked against the samples on file to determine if one of the bodies was a relative.
Until some identification is made and the families decide what to do with them, the bodies will remain at Watt Yan Yao and the other morgues.
© 2005 Rafael D. Frankel and The Chicago Tribune
TAKUA PA, Thailand—On the last day of the year at Watt Yan Yao, the Buddhist temple-turned-mortuary, the bodies just kept coming.
While forensics teams from Thailand, Australia and Holland begun the work to identify badly decomposed remains, the 1,600 corpses lined in rows in nearly every corner of the Watt on Thursday were joined by 2,000 more on Friday, bringing the total number of dead from near-by Khao Lak Beach alone to greater than those killed in the September 11 attacks in the United States.
With the Andaman Sea still disgorging bodies five days after the tsunamis struck, the death toll—though smaller than in the other hard hit countries—continued to climb higher than anyone here originally thought possible: 5,043 dead, 10,459 injured, with 6,479 still missing.
The ever-increasing toll the tidal waves wrecked upon Thailand did not leave many in the mood to celebrate the new year here.
While some five-star resorts went ahead with slightly scaled back versions of their previously scheduled gala dinners, most of the celebrations in the south, and indeed across Thailand, were cancelled.
A candle light vigil was held in Phuket Town Hall, which is serving as the disaster relief center here, to mark 2005. In Bangkok, and in towns across the northern regions of the country, many people wore black.
Supone Sengsahus, 43, a taxi driver in Phuket, said he was taking his family to a Buddhist temple “to make merit for the Thai and foreigners” who died the day after Christmas.
In a reversal from what Thai officials said for the first five days since the disaster, when they claimed the vast majority of those killed were locals, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Friday that at least 2,230 of the dead were foreigners. Most of them were Europeans taking a tropical Christmas vacation.
“The fact is that the hardest hit areas were frequented by foreigners,” Foreign Ministry Spokesman Sihasak Phuangketkeow said. “The whole country feels sorry for everyone that died, Thai and foreigner both.”
With the magnitude of the tsunami now sinking in, officials and aid workers from foreign governments were arriving by the dozens from many of at least 35 countries which had nationals killed and injured here.
Sweden, which now believes it may have lost from 2,000 to 3,500 people in the tidal waves, had teams from its Foreign Affairs Ministry inspecting Watt Yan Yao Friday trying to arrange the logistics for hundreds, if not thousands, of relatives expected to make the trip here to try to find missing family members.
The Swedish government has come under blistering criticism at home by many who felt its reaction to the tragedy was callously sluggish.
“I agree, we were too slow,” said Nina Brungstedt, a member of Sweden’s inspection team. “The whole country is in mourning. Everybody lost someone or knows of someone that is missing.”
While the United States was also criticized for acting slowly and being stingy with its aid in the aftermath of the disaster, its relief contributions began Friday with supply runs to the stricken areas on Friday by C-130 aircraft.
Those runs were just the first salvo in what was to be an “enormous and continuous” relief effort by the American military, a U.S. embassy spokesman said.
Two hours east of Bangkok, the Utapao Airbase, which the United States used for bombing runs during the Vietnam War, was transforming into the coordinating center for the U.S. relief effort in South Asia, the spokesman said. An entire carrier fleet, forensics teams, and other relief specialists were expected shortly.
Meanwhile, the Watt in this small Thai village—where the smell of decomposing bodies inundates even the local 7-11s—saw its front lawn usurped by a make-shift mortuary of cargo holds. It is one of the three special morgues being built in Thailand to house the bodies of the dead where Thai and foreign forensics teams began sifting through the thousands of corpses in an effort to determine which bodies were locals and which were not.
Though Foreign Ministry Spokesman Sihasak said the bodies would be given the same treatment regardless of nationality, at Watt Yan Yao, foreign bodies were being stored in the recently installed air-conditioned cargo holds while Thai bodies were being bagged with a block of dry ice set on top of them until more holds arrived.
After five days of decomposition, the identification process was often slow. And with the dead continuing to be brought in by the truck load, Peter Knox, a senior constable who is leading the Australian forensics team here, said they “had no idea when they would be finished.”
“The scale is absolutely massive,” Knox said, his team having been deployed to Bali after the Oct. 2002 bombings there which killed 202 people.
After separating the bodies, the forensics teams will begin taking skin samples to create a DNA database of all the dead here, a Dutch forensic team member who wished his name withheld said. People with missing family members could then have their DNA checked against the samples on file to determine if one of the bodies was a relative.
Until some identification is made and the families decide what to do with them, the bodies will remain at Watt Yan Yao and the other morgues.
© 2005 Rafael D. Frankel and The Chicago Tribune