Thailand: 2004 tsunami victims still lying unidentified in their graves

It's been 15 years since the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami killed over 5,000 people in Thailand alone. Police are still waiting with a cargo full of documents, wallets, electronics all bagged and labelled as evidence as they hope might one day help identify the hundreds of victims. The unidentified victims of the tsunami were buried in nearby graves marked only by numbers. 

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2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and earthquake

Over 3,600 victims were identified in just two years with the help of the Disaster Victim Identification (DVI) unit that included police and forensics from over 30 countries. But hundreds of bodies are still waiting to find a grave with a name written on it. Pol Col Khemmarin Hassini, deputy police commander at Takua Pa police station in Takua Pa region has said that there are still more relatives of the victims hoping to find their loved ones and if we are determined enough and reactive the investigation we can help the 340 unidentified bodies to reach their relatives. 

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Pol Col Khemmarin Hassini was also part of the international investigating team and feels that it is very difficult to do it now as the communication channels have shut down and the leads are lost. However, the investigation carried out by the DVI unit was the largest and most successful project of its kind. A resort town of Khao Lak was the most affected town in Thailand. 

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The Indian Ocean tsunami was triggered by a 9.1 magnitude earthquake with an epicenter off the west coast of northern Sumatra in Indonesia. Over 2,30,000 people lost their lives in one of the deadliest natural disasters in the world. The direct results caused by the tsunami harmed living conditions of people in India, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Indonesia. The tremors of the earthquake were felt as far away as Alaska. 

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