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.