Nervous_Dog Posted January 8, 2005 Author Report Share Posted January 8, 2005 Same reason's Yanks come to Bangkok to live I guess, go somewhere different, with diiferent opportunities. O, his name is in the reports on reuters, made the decision first unilaterally, then others followed his lead, now with negative farang news reports he's worried. DOG Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 14, 2005 Report Share Posted January 14, 2005 A few days ago I returned from working and visiting all the homeless shelters in the Phangnga region. I also spent some time at the Wat Yan Yao...which is where all the bodies of victims in the area are taken for autopsy and notation of identifying marks and physical characteristics. This work is being done by forensic pathologists in an area with no access to non-workers. On the Wat grounds there is an area with 18 40-ft cargo containers which contain victims already examined and those to be examined. NO one can just walk up and open these container to look for lost ones! Evidently Nervous' comment must have occurred in a different part of Phuket. orandanodes said:As af as I know, all people have been banned from the morgues for some time now. Only forensic experts (many of them are farang by the way) may enter folloing proper hygiene procedure. ...<snip>.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 14, 2005 Report Share Posted January 14, 2005 >>>NO one can just walk up and open these container to look for lost ones! Evidently Nervous' comment must have occurred in a different part of Phuket.<<< i have been the first 4 days after the catastrophy in wat yan yao, sleeping in wat yan yao. in those days of utter chaos everybody could walk into the grounds. there were no cold storage containers, nothing of that sort you can see today on TV, what you have mentioned in your post. there were only corpses, and every free space of wat yan yao was covered tightly with those corpses. people running around everywhere looking for their lost relatives. yes, he speaks about exactly the same area. only that by now things have changed a lot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flashermac Posted January 14, 2005 Report Share Posted January 14, 2005 Two days ago, a monk I know walked up to me and handed me a photo album with a pleasant smile on his face. I opened the album and realised why I hadn't seen him for a while. He had been at Phang-nga and the pics were all of bloated and blackening corpses, hardly even looking human anymore. Many of the pics were close ups. I said Wat Yan Yao and he said yes. The contrast between the lovely temple and the rows upon rows of decaying cadavers was striking. Certainly, no one could recognise those bodies by their appearance! The monk -- from Wat Son in Ratburana -- took the pics to use in teaching young students about the impermanence of life and the futility of building up riches in this world. I can just imagine the outcry if anyone showed such pics to students in the west. p.s. He told me they have about 5,000 bodies at Phang-nga, with plenty more yet to be located. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 14, 2005 Report Share Posted January 14, 2005 >>>took the pics to use in teaching young students about the impermanence of life and the futility of building up riches in this world<<< yeps. one monk at the massgraves said a very similar thing to me, of how to come to terms what happened there. those days at wat yan yao will forever stay with me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 14, 2005 Report Share Posted January 14, 2005 Fly...thanks for the update/correction. I arrived and worked in the area ten days after the disaster. Thankfully they are more organized now. The lost relative area is now just outside of the Wat's entrance as well as an areas to gain a pass to enter the Wat. Yet, it's still chaos in the Wat...camera crews, etc. flyonzewall said:i have been the first 4 days after the catastrophy in wat yan yao, sleeping in wat yan yao. in those days of utter chaos everybody could walk into the grounds. .... people running around everywhere looking for their lost relatives. yes, he speaks about exactly the same area. only that by now things have changed a lot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 15, 2005 Report Share Posted January 15, 2005 in those days it was basically dr. pornthip and her small team, and a few rescue volonteers who were there. it was simply impossible to keep people out of the temple. there were even not enough people to carry corpses. i was the only foreigner there, and had to help translating for the tourists who looked for their dead relatives. very bad. on monday and up to tuesday afternoon it was still possible to recognise the dead, but after that impossible. some understood it, but some could not be persuaded to stay off the grounds and wait for the DNA analyses. what pisses me off tremendously now, is that the government likes to give the appearance that they had everything under control from day one, and blame everything on dr. pornthip, who in fact was the only one who kept some sort of order in the chaos. it was just an impossible situation, and she, and the local thai rescue volonteers did more than can be expected from any human. she worked when we woke up, and when we went to sleep, i saw her from my balcony still running around trying to order the mass of corpses. yes, there were incidents when false corpses were given out, there were incidents when already ID'd corpses were lost. but that could just not be avoided. if even the attempt would have been made to keep relatives out of the area, that would have started a riot. fact is that the first small group of soldiers arrived on tuesday afternoon, and during that night brought the first load of corpses to the mass graves. more the following day. and only on wednesday late afternoon the circus arrived. large scale operations started only on thursday (the day i flew back to bangkok). up till then the government left us alone, while cleaning up the far less hit phuket. the heros of those days were dr. pornthip and her team, the thai rescue volonteers, and the locals, who even though have lost many relatives, worked beyond the point of exhaustion. nobody else was there. it was terrible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 15, 2005 Report Share Posted January 15, 2005 Fly...The Wat Yan Yao, in the "DVI" section, now has 62 docs representing 16 different countries. I spoke with the head manager, as I want to help with the autopsies and corpse ID. No go as he had maily forensic pathologists working. He did express frustration that after many requests he still couldn't get enough security for the 'DVI' area. Thers is now security outside the Wat, but still a few concerned tourist manage to slip in and interfere with the work in progress. One thing that really pissed me off appeared in last Thurs. BKK-Post. Toxin commented that he (paraphrased as I don't have the paper handy)...'didn't want farangs helping with the rebuilding efforts. He felt they would later view some of the houses built for the homeless and just comment the 'we' built those'... thus possibly tarnishing the work the Thai' rebuilding effort. DAMN....all the farangs I encountered only wanted to help the homeless...they didn't want praise nor were they stroking their egos. Toxin...get a grip on reality and understand what a samaritian is.... flyonzewall said:in those days it was basically dr. pornthip and her small team, and a few rescue volonteers who were there. it was simply impossible to keep people out of the temple. ..<snip>.. what pisses me off tremendously now, is that the government likes to give the appearance that they had everything under control from day one, and blame everything on dr. pornthip, ...<snip>..the heros of those days were dr. pornthip and her team, the thai rescue volonteers, and the locals, who even though have lost many relatives, worked beyond the point of exhaustion. nobody else was there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flashermac Posted January 17, 2005 Report Share Posted January 17, 2005 Fry, this might interest you. Short messages, plus names of survivors etc. http://images.google.co.th/... [shortened URL description - KS] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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