KHAO LAK, Thailand, 30 December 2004 — The stench of decaying bodies at a Thai Buddhist templeturned temporary morgue was too much for one German survivor.
“I can’t stay here anymore. It’s too horrible,” he said, leaving as others filed past bloated corpses looking for any clues that would identify relatives and friends missing after a tsunami ripped apart Thailand’s Khao Lak beach on Sunday. About 300 bodies arrived at Wat Yan Yao, the biggest of four temples being used temporary morgues as rescue teams pull the dead from Khao Lak’s shattered seafront hotels and debris - strewn mangrove fields. By nightfall yesterday, more than 1,800 bodies had been recovered from what the wall of water left of the hotels where tourists could pay up to $200 a night.
Small groups of Thais and foreigners filed past soldiers guarding the inner temple area where several rows of bloated corpses lay, many with limbs jutting through makeshift body bags. Identifying them may take a long time and some may never be known, said Thailand’s top forensic scientist. Pornthip Rojanasunant told Reuters she was collecting DNA samples of all the corpses at the temple — about 20 percent foreigners — by swabbing mouths or taking hair. The samples could be matched to relatives later, she said. Health workers toiling in 30—degree heat at the temple know the dangers posed by disease while the identification process drags on. A team of 10 volunteers — wearing green smocks, rubber boots and surgical masks — used garden watering cans to douse the corpses with chemicals.
“If we spray properly, then we can control the situation now. But if we get more and more bodies, we will need help,” said Nattata Premsarin, a Health Ministry worker training volunteers.
