Lecturer identifies tsunami victims in Thailand

As the weeks have passed since the tsunami disaster, information about the current situation in affected areas has dropped off the news agenda. Forensic anthropology lecturer Tim Thompson has just returned from a two week trip to Phuket in Thailand, where he was involved with the process of identifying some of the thousands of victims' bodies. He saw at first hand how the island is recovering almost three months on.

Tim's trip was organised by Kenyon International Emergency Services, the organisation his colleague Sue Black worked with during her time in Thailand over the New Year period. He explains, "The group I worked with was part of the Disaster Victim Identification Team, which is made up of around 60 team members from all over the world. The team has been working in Phuket continuously since the tsunami disaster, but because of the nature of the work, most people stay for no more than a few weeks at a time."

Assisting with the ante-mortem and post-mortem comparisons was Tim's main task during his time in Phuket. Governments from all over the world have provided information, such as dental records, about missing persons who are thought to have died in the tsunami. That information is then cross referenced, via a computer database, with information that Tim and his co-workers had gleaned from examinations of the bodies.

If the database comes up with a match between ante-mortem and post-mortem data, the team then double check the information, and decide whether a positive identification can be made.

Tim said, "There have been around 700 confirmations of identity since the work began after Christmas. The process is speeding up, around 30-40 victims are now being identified every day. There is a sense of urgency among the team, everyone is fully aware of how important this work is. There are still thousands of bodies waiting to be identified."

Like Sue, Tim is critical of the initial response from the UK government in the wake of the disaster. He said, "The Disaster Victim Identification part of the UK response was slow. Unlike the German and Austrian governments, the UK doesn't have a dedicated DVI team and it takes an incident such as this to make the Government aware of their shortcomings and the fact that we need a UK team. Natural disasters like this will always happen, so we need a more efficient means of deploying people to the areas where their skills are needed - a UK DVI team would enable that to happen."

While the identification process continues, life goes on in Phuket. "There are still tourists visiting Phuket," said Tim, "The locals are really grateful that people are still coming out for holidays and the clean up operation is continuing to get the island back to normal."