Thai government covering up real death toll?

[elef]

Hi,

 

swedish TV yesterday told that the swedish government had heard the rumours of mass graves and all suspected such will be opened by the international teams and bodies identified.

 

elef

[pattaya127]

We are still in the time frame where rumours fly around a lot. I don't mean rumours of more dead, but that the idea is to conceal the burying of 1000 corpses. What's the point, everyone knows the impact of the tdunami, why would hiding burial sites benefit tourism? ::

 

I would rather lean towards the situation being handed clumsily and many things like burying corpses done in haste, rather than criminal intent to conceal. Has anyone denied these mass graves?

 

In every country struck, the official agencies are over-run by the scope of the damage done. To me, what i will remember next to the incredible carnage is the outpouring from private citizens and parties from all over the world. I think this must be recognized too, it's not just tsunami then corrupt handling of the losses.

[ThaiHome]

I find this story the worst type of yellow sensationalism journalism. At no point in the article is there any proof the Thai government is HIDING the bodies. If you have been reading detail accounts or paying attention to official announcements, the government has acknowledged, since early last week, that they had to start burying the bodies (emphasizing that they are not cremating any unidentified bodies) with the intent of exhuming them later for return to the families. This is exactly what the article itself says, once you get past the inflammatory headline and introductory paragraph.

P127 is correct, there is no intent to hide bodies, but there is no doubt a great deal of inexperience and incompetence with dealing with this many bodies.

TH

[gobbledonk]

Gruesome stuff, but I can relate to the need to bury the dead ASAP.

 

The list of dead and issing reveals some interesting numbers : for example, the hardest hit countries like Germany and Sweden have roughly 60 dead, and 1000-2000 missing. The US has *15* dead and 5,000 missing ? WTF ???

[khunsanuk]

Hi,

 

I think a lot of the 'missing' are people living in Thailand who are reported as missing by people back home. Likely many of these people were nowhere near the disaster area, but have just not contacted the people back home.

 

Sanuk!

[jxxxl]

I also heard that in many cases there are multiple "missing persons" reports for the same person i.e., where many friends and families are reporting a person missing to different organizations.

 

It may also have to do with what it takes to confirm death e.g., positive ID of the body and death certificate issued by the contry of the national. A big issue for the missing is getting a proper death certificate. In the US, life insurance and social security, and a lot of other important stuff, can't be processed until there is a positively ID'd body - very tragic for the relatives.

[Flashermac]

Apparently, the disaster is being played up more more in the west than here. I heard from a travel agent that he had Brits cancelling their planned trips to CHIANG MAI! I've had I don't know how many e-mails asking me if I am safe ... in Bangkok.

[Khun_Kong]

Flashermac said:

Apparently, the disaster is being played up more more in the west than here. I heard from a travel agent that he had Brits cancelling their planned trips to CHIANG MAI! I've had I don't know how many e-mails asking me if I am safe ... in Bangkok.

 

 

555!

 

Same here.

 

I live in BKK. Here's an email I received from a woman I know- educated, university employee:

 

"wow, Khun_Kong, thanks so much for the email. I was

indeed wondering how you were. I was planning to send

aid thru my church, but please let me know if you need

anything--if I can help you directly!!"

 

Hmmm, lemme think for a moment...

[Guest]

artiew said:

Gruesome stuff, but I can relate to the need to bury the dead ASAP.

 

The list of dead and issing reveals some interesting numbers : for example, the hardest hit countries like Germany and Sweden have roughly 60 dead, and 1000-2000 missing. The US has *15* dead and 5,000 missing ? WTF ???

 

 

the problem is that those are the confirmed, identified dead. there are countless corpses, both foreigner and thai who are more than dificult to identify. by the time the foreign forensic teams arrived it was even not possible to see the difference between thai, asian, and westerner in a corpse.

there were an uncounted number of people washed into the sea, will never be found. and many are under the mud and sand, will also not be found.

the mass graves happened, were at the time not avoidable, and due to the chaos and state of the corpses the likelyhood is high that western corpses slipped under the thai corpses. but i would put the number at 1000 corpses at most who were buried in mass graves, i have seen about 300 to 400 corpses buried there. the graves were marked.

 

problem though is that the more the issue is sensationalised, the more the issue becomes a political issue. it was unavoidable at the time being to get rid of the corpses ASAP. point.

 

the government though does downplay the number of dead. in ban naam khem alone there are more than 3000 people missing and most probably dead. in khao lak thousands. in other beaches the same. plus a very high, unknown number of burmese workers.

in ko phi phi at least 2000 dead.

i still would put the realistic number of somewhere around 20 000 in phang na province alone. but in the end - it will be impossible to give any bodycount, mainly due to the unknown number of people in the affected areas.

[gobbledonk]

Thats an astounding number of dead, Fly - as you say, its unlikely that we will ever know the exact toll. Surely its easier to establish the number of foreigers missing, based on visas etc ?

 

I seem to remember seeing the initial estimate of 600 dead in Thailand and thinking 'No way - they've only been to a couple of beaches !'. How many times have you traversed a crowded town in Asia that is barely a dot on the map and thought 'I bet 60% of these people live completely under the official radar' ? Aceh woud be even worse in this regard than Thailand, and the attempts by Western news crews to estimate the number of dead based on the remains of flattened villages border on the absurd, but I doubt that they'll get much help from the census-takers in Jakarta.