Free Airfares For British Tsunami Victims Families
by Richard S. Ehrlich
PHUKET, Thailand -- The British government is
offering free airfare and accommodation for
British families who lost relatives in the
tsunamis, so they can grieve amid the
wreckage of hotels, inspect the devastated
beaches and escort the remains back home.
British police, meanwhile, are visiting
apartments, houses and offices in England
and elsewhere, meticulously dusting
personal property for fingerprints to see if
they match Interpol's new, high-tech tsunami
database of people missing and dead.
"People who have relatives who are either
confirmed dead, or who are highly likely to
have been involved [in the tsunami], are
provided a package of return airfares and
accommodation and all the assistance that
we can provide in-country," a British Embassy
spokesperson said in an interview on
Wednesday (Jan. 12).
Relatives who ask to see the deceased,
however, are gently informed that viewing
recovered corpses is not permitted.
"We have explained to relatives -- through
the family liaison officer, who is appointed to
each family as the liaison between
government and family -- that visual
identification at this stage...is not going to be
possible," the British diplomat said, asking not
to be named.
Visiting mortuaries and Buddhist temples
where bodies are buried in temporary
graves, kept outdoors on dry ice, or stacked
in refrigerated shipping containers is now
restricted to forensic teams and other
officials.
After more than two weeks of tropical heat,
the salt water-soaked cadavers have bloated
and started to decompose.
If a relative saw their loved one's corpse
now, "it would be just too distressing, and
would not aid the identification process,
because we are beyond the visual
identification phase," the British diplomat
said.
"The process now has to be the forensic
process that we've agreed internationally
with all the other countries that have
nationals still missing."
Relatives and friends have traveled from
many nations to Thailand, Indonesia, India, Sri
Lanka and the Maldives to try and
comprehend the last moments of the dead or
missing victims, and move toward closure.
"We have seen various [British] families --
two, three, four a day -- come in to see us, to
talk," the envoy said.
"Some want to go and see the place where
they [the victims] were staying -- Khao Lak,
or Phi Phi, or Krabi -- and really it is, I think,
part of the grieving process.
"That is part of the reason the embassy office
is here, to give them all the support they
need."
Khao Lak, just north of Phuket in Phang Nga
province, was worst-hit by the tsunamis on
Dec. 26, which also swept over tiny Phi Phi
Island and slammed onto west coast beaches
along Krabi.
Each arriving family has special needs and
requests.
Some want to commune, or pray, in the
natural surroundings where the person
perished.
"It varies from case to case. Different people
want to see different things, to see hotels, to
walk along the beach.
"People have different motivations and
grieve in different ways. For some people it
will help. For others it won't help so much."
Some families pay their own way. Those who
make use of the government's free travel
package can do so at any time.
"We have had about 10 or 12 families come
through. There is no time limit on when they
can come out. Some wanted to come
immediately. Some will want to escort the
body back when it is identified, and that may
be in the next few weeks or several months."
The government's offer has been publicized in
the British media and elsewhere, but "it
doesn't really have an official name. It's a
package of support for affected relatives. It
was made available within days of the
tsunami."
Limits do apply.
"It is two family members -- sometimes it's
more, but the package is for two return
airfares, and accommodation," the British
Embassy spokesperson said.
"It's for anyone who has had a relative
affected in any country."
The dead also receive free flights.
Bodies are sealed in special caskets to
prevent mid-air leakage or other accidents.
Cremated corpses are packed in hatbox-sized
containers which can be hand-carried.
"When the body of their relative is identified,
we will pay for the repatriation," the envoy
said.
Of the 38 confirmed deaths in Thailand, "about
20" bodies have been returned to Britain, he
said.
Most were "bodies to be buried."
Possibilities for cremation are "entirely up to
families. The option is for the body to be
cremated locally, or to be flown back and
cremated there."
At least 416 Britons are confirmed killed or
missing and likely to be dead, in all countries
affected by the tsunamis, including the 38
confirmed dead in Thailand, he said.
An additional 700 Brits "are thought to be in
the region, who were due to be in contact,
but are not in contact, and have not been in
contact," he said.
"Obviously, as time goes on, some of those
people will reappear and be taken off the
list."
Interpol, meanwhile, has provided a
professional standard of "forensic identifiers"
that governments throughout the world have
agreed upon, to confirm the identity of
corpses recovered from the tsunamis.
"There are three identifiers: fingerprints, DNA
or dental records. For a death certificate to
be issued, you need two of those. Any
combination, but two-out-of-three," the
British diplomat said.
"Those forensics are to be matched to
forensic identifiers that have come from
family members or possessions. In the case of
fingerprints, for example, it can be something
that was in the house [in Britain], that could
then be fingerprinted by the U.K. [United
Kingdom] team.
"We are putting all of that information
together at the Identification Command
Headquarters, which is here in Phuket."
Copyright by Richard S. Ehrlich
email: animists *at* yahoo dot com
Richard S. Ehrlich, a freelance journalist who has reported news from Asia for the past 26 years, is co-author of the non-fiction book, "HELLO MY BIG BIG HONEY!" -- Love Letters to Bangkok Bar Girls and Their Revealing Interviews.
His web page is
http://www.oocities.org/asia_correspondent
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