Tsunami victims exhumed in search for Westerners

The bodies of hundreds of tsunami victims are being exhumed in southern Thailand so that new DNA samples can be taken, a forensics expert said today amid concerns that there may be Westerners among them who were misidentified as locals.

The bodies were initially buried in sandy trenches in Bang Muang north of Khao Lak because there were not enough refrigerated containers to hold them, said Thailand’s leading forensics expert, Dr Pornthip Rojanasunand.

More containers have now arrived and the bodies will be transferred to refrigerated storage units after fresh DNA samples are taken, dental records collated, and a microchip inserted into each to ease identification, Dr Pornthip said.

Experts took hair samples from the bodies before they were buried at Bang Muang, but the DNA sampling procedure has now changed and they will take additional samples from the ribs, Pornthip said. She did not explain why the procedure has changed.

Thai officials say samples for DNA identification are being taken from all bodies.

Dr Pornthip said that when people think they have identified their relatives from photos of the dead, “we will collect the DNA from the relatives and collect the DNA from the bodies and send the samples to the United States, to match the DNA.”

“If the DNA (match) is confirmed, we will release the body within five days,” she said.

Local officials have insisted that only Thais were buried at Bang Muang, but there are now concerns that Westerners may have been misidentified as Asians in the chaotic recovery of thousands of bodies after the Boxing Day tsunami.

The Bangkok Post newspaper reported today that relatives of missing Westerners suspected their loved ones may have been buried along with Thai and other Asian victims at the temporary cemetery.

Some Western-looking corpses have already been placed in refrigeration units at Yan Yao temple, the main temporary morgue in the area.

Forensics teams from Germany, Australia, New Zealand and the Netherlands, as well as a joint Scandinavian team, have been working at Yan Yao to identify the bodies.

Some 5,300 people are confirmed dead in Thailand, about half of them foreigners. About 3,700 are still listed as missing.