Police warn families hunting for relatives
The hastily established Official Thai Tsunami Information Centre, set up by the Royal Thai Police to cater for the deluge of appeals for help in locating victims and missing people, does not delude anyone that their task will be easy.
“Most of the victims were wearing only swim suits at the time of the incident and consequently there is very limited evidence with which to identify the bodies,” circulars from the centre at Phuket City Police Station bluntly state.
“Most of the victims were drowned and it took four to five days to recover the bodies. The heat and high humidity of the tropical climate contributed to the fast decomposition of the bodies, further hindering the collection of evidence.”
It is this harsh reality that greets new arrivals to the country and overshadows the efforts of people who have been scouring hospitals, morgues and bulletin boards for any scrap of evidence that their loved one is still alive.
Dubliner Barry Murphy, 29, is among those who has been doing a daily round of information points, desperate to find news of his girlfriend, Eilis Finnegan, of whom he has heard nothing since the tsunami struck.
Eilis, 27, from Ballyfermot in Dublin, was a few feet ahead of Barry when he last saw her, as they tried to run through the rising waters that engulfed them on the beach at Phi Phi where they had arrived only 15 minutes earlier.
He told at the weekend how the pair, who were going out for more than a year, had just ordered breakfast in a beach-front cafe, where they planned to wait for the ferry to neighbouring Koh Lanta, when the waves struck.
They had no idea of the danger they were in and were initially concerned only with keeping their rucksacks dry. In their efforts to flee one incoming tide, they ran directly into the oncoming waves on the other side of the narrow strip of land.
As he ran, Barry scooped up a little boy of about four who was being pulled by the hand by an elderly woman. The woman was also struggling to hold onto another child in her arms, but in seconds they were both submerged.
Barry was unable to hold his breath any longer when suddenly the water level fell and he and the little boy surfaced. Even then he did not panic about Eilis as he believed he would find her, like himself, soaked, shocked and sore but safe.
He hasn’t given up hope that that is how he will eventually find her when the piecemeal information that is coming through battered communications networks from official and unofficial sources begins to provide a clearer picture of the scale of the disaster.
Despite his own trauma, Barry has helped Irish Ambassador Dan Mulhall set up the Irish stand at the crisis centre in Phuket Provincial Hall in an attempt to help steer others through the confusion.
Mr Mulhall has moved to Thailand from his permanent base in Malaysia indefinitely to coordinate the search for Irish victims. A senior official from the Department of Foreign Affairs has been dispatched to join him there.
A similar arrangement has been put in place in Sri Lanka where there is also no permanent Irish embassy as the country comes under the remit of the Irish Embassy in India.
A Department of Foreign Affairs spokesman said last night that those people travelling to the affected countries were being directed to Irish officials on the ground who were using local contacts to tap into the information available through police, hospitals and other emergency services.
The spokesman said their efforts had been bolstered by volunteers from the Irish communities in the affected countries. “Every assistance that can be given to family members travelling is being made available,” he said.
But the dearth of reliable information is still the biggest obstacle.
Mr Mulhall said late last week he had been given assurances that no bodies of foreigners were being buried until relatives had a chance to claim them. Later, however, some British tourists reported they had to help bury westerners of unknown nationality because they were rotting in the open.
Aside from immediate family members, a wide circle of friends and acquaintances have been left wondering and worrying about people who may have been affected by the disaster.
Peter Byrne from Lucan, Co Dublin, has been waiting all week for news of his friend, Steven Bryce, who was in Thailand on holidays and who has not been in contact as Peter would have expected.
Scaffolder, Steven, 29, is originally from Wales but has been living in Dublin for a number of years and has been good friends with Peter since the two worked on the Intel computer plant in Kildare.
“I’ve been watching all the websites - the Red Cross, the Thai police, Sky News, the Phuket Gazette - but his name hasn’t come up under any list for those missing, dead or confirmed as safe. Another friend went out to join him and he is all right so we’re just hoping he can make contact with Steven,” said Peter.
Currently employed by construction company, Laing O’Rourke, Steven is due back at work on a job in Maynooth tomorrow.
“The wait is worrying but there are an awful lot of people who have not been named in any category and there are a lot of people looking for them,” said Peter. “We’ll just have to wait until Tuesday and hope Steven turns up for work.”
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