Senior Thai officials squabbled today over who should conduct forensic identification of thousands of victims from last month’s tsunami disaster, in a quarrel that could delay the process of handing over bodies to grieving relatives.

THAILAND struggled to assess the human cost of its tsunami disaster, pressing ahead with the search for more bodies but sharply reducing the figure for those missing and feared dead.

AT least 78 people were suffocated or crushed to death after being arrested and packed into police trucks following a riot in southern Thailand, doctors said yesterday.

At least 78 people have died following a riot in southern Thailand, many of them crushed and suffocated after they were arrested and packed tightly into trucks, doctors said today.