Rescue teams in grim search for missing people

RESCUE teams converged on beaches and remote islands in search of the missing yesterday as authorities reported that more than 430 people, including a number of foreign tourists, were killed and 4,100 injured when earthquake-spawned tidal waves devastated idyllic resort areas of southern Thailand.

While officials didn’t provide numbers of foreigners among the victims, local media reports indicated that a sizeable percentage of the dead were Western and Asian holidaymakers.

Dr Piphat Yingseri, a senior official of the Public Health Ministry in Bangkok, said 431 people died and more than 4,100 were injured in the disaster that struck eight provinces in the south.

Thai navy warships steamed toward islands in the area to rescue survivors, at least 200 of whom were evacuated by helicopter from Phi Phi island, one of the most popular tourist destinations in Thailand which was swamped by the surging waters.

The tidal waves and flooding in Thailand were induced by a 9.0-magnitude earthquake, the world’s strongest in 40 years, which originated in Indonesian waters but wreaked devastation along the southern shores of Asia, killing more than 11,600.

Witnesses described seeing waters disappearing away from the beaches in the minutes before the waves struck. Scientists say the effect is caused by tidal waves sucking shallow coastal waters out to sea before returning them as a massive wall of water.

“The water went back, back, back, so far away, and everyone wondered what it was - a full moon or what? Then we saw the wave come, and we ran,” said Katri Seppanen, who was on the island’s popular Patong beach with her family when the wave washed over their heads and separated them. They found each other two hours later. Seppanen, 27, of Helsinki, Finland, walked around barefoot, in her salt water-stained T-shirt and skirt, at the Patong Hospital Monday where she had been treated for an injury.

Among the foreigners who died was one New Zealander, one South Korean and three Malaysians including a couple who died inside a seashore cave on Muk island. The Foreign Ministry in Seoul said South Korean Lim Wu-jeong, 33, and his Malaysian wife were killed and another South Korean was missing.

The New Zealand government announced that one unnamed citizen had perished on Phuket island, while the Australian Associated Press said the Down’s syndrome son of a Melbourne family was missing.

Paul Giardina, 16, was separated from his parents when a hotel restaurant at which they were eating breakfast was inundated with rushing water carrying tables, chairs and even a car, the agency said. Rescue teams converged on beaches and remote islands in search of the missing as the Thai prime minister said up to 700 people perished when earthquake-spawned tidal waves devastated idyllic resort areas of southern Thailand.

Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said between 600 and 700 persons had died when the waves and flooding struck Phuket and the surrounding region.

Major General Kokiet Wongworachart, commander of Phuket’s police force, said that 35 of the victims who died on the island had been identified as foreigners. But the number of Western and Asian tourists who perished is expected to be far higher.

Media reported nationals of Ireland South Korea, Japan, Germany, South Africa, Hong Kong, Britain, Denmark, Australia, Malaysia, Mexico, Russia, Sweden, Chile and the United States as among the dead and missing.

Among the dead was the grandson of Thailand’s King Bhumipol Adulyadej, the prime minister said. Phi Phi, one of the most popular destinations for tourists, was swamped.

More than 1,000 tourists from around the world flocked to the Phuket City Hall, where officials from 19 embassies set up tables to issue passports to tourists who lost their documents.

Chaos erupted at Phuket’s airport as hundreds of tourists, many bandaged and brought to the airport in ambulances, tried to board planes for Bangkok.