Months before Thai bodies are identified

The bodies of some victims of the tsunamis that smashed into southern Thailand will never be found, while many others that are recovered could take months to identify, officials said today.

Half of those killed in Thailand are foreigners, many holiday-makers from Europe.

But nine days after the Boxing Day tragedy, many of the corpses are so bloated that they can’t be identified visually so dental records and DNA tests must be used.

“It’s difficult to distinguish a blonde European and an Asian,” Thai Foreign Minister Surakiart Sathirathai said.

More than 200 forensic experts from Thailand and 18 other countries are working frantically at Buddhist temples – serving as makeshift morgues – to identify the dead, many of them foreign tourists.

At one morgue, several hundred bodies lay on the ground, covered by tarps or body bags. Another hundred lay in the sun. A man sprayed a cloud of disinfectant.

“To match them will all take quite some time, it could take weeks or it could even take months,” Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said during a visit to the beach resort island of Phuket. “There probably will be some bodies that will never be found, and we have to prepare ourselves for that as well.”

With 5,246 confirmed deaths and 4,499 people still listed as missing, Thailand’s official death toll could be as high as 8,000, Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has warned. The total number of people killed in 11 nations was expected to exceed 150,000.

Foreigners’ bodies are kept in air-conditioned containers, while those of Thais are temporarily buried in nearby cemeteries, waiting for relatives to retrieve them for cremation. Some are being packed in dry ice to slow down decomposition in the tropical heat.

Officials have been trying to increase refrigeration capacity to store bodies while DNA samples and dental records are obtained.

Meanwhile in Bangkok, US Secretary of State Colin Powell sought to reassure Asian leaders on a tour to inspect tsunami damage that the United States is in solidarity in helping the region recover.

“The United States will certainly not turn away from those in desperate need,” Powell said.

He said the biggest problem now is not money but how to distribute it and plan for long-term reconstruction.