‘Little hope of naming tsunami victims’

With the bodies of almost 400 victims of the Indian Ocean tsunami still unidentified a decade later, Thai police were holding out little hope of gleaning any new information from opening a cargo container packed with unclaimed personal items.

Watches, chunky gold necklaces with Buddhist amulets, an Egyptian souvenir coin purse, and a wad of $1,800 (€1,475) in cash were pulled from tattered cardboard boxes and police evidence bags stashed in the container that has not been opened since 2011.

The three meter by 12 meter container was passed to various Thai police agencies after the 2004 disaster that killed at least 226,000 people in 14 countries.