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PHUKET, Jan 3: Thai police ordered foreign families and friends on Monday to stay away from tsunami-hit areas, including temporary morgues in Buddhist temples where they have searched for missing loved ones.
That would allow hundreds of forensic experts to get on with the job of identifying bodies of thousands of Thais and foreigners through DNA samples, they said. "Friends and family members must refrain from visiting the tsunami-affected locations, temples, mosques, all operational grounds, including DNA gathering sites and autopsy sites," Police Lieutenant Tuaytup Dwibyunsin said in a statement.
"We have to get organised." Anguished foreigners have scoured temporary morgues in search of family and friends either dead or missing since the Dec 26 killer waves slammed into Thailand's Andaman Sea coast.
Now, foreign volunteers who rushed here in the wake of Thailand's worst natural disaster must register with authorities, the statement said. Thailand's national disaster centre said 5,104 bodies -2,459 of them foreigners - had been recovered from fishing villages and crumpled luxury hotels. Nearly 4,000 people are still missing - nearly half of them foreigners.
SEARCH WINDS DOWN: The clampdown came a day after a 19-nation forensic task force was set up to oversee the grisly work of identifying bodies - mainly through dental records and DNA testing - which will take many months to complete.
Some bodies may never be recovered or identified, task force leaders said. The corpses - badly decomposed after more than a week in the tropical sun - were now beyond recognition and families and friends should go home, they said.
Interior Minister Bhokin Bhalakula said the search for bodies was winding down in most areas, with operations over on the island on Phuket, one of Asia's premier beach resorts.
Phi Phi island, made famous in the 2000 film "The Beach", would be cleared by Tuesday and rescue teams zeroed in on three hard-hit areas in Phang Nga province. Thousands of tourists and Thai villagers were swept away from the area around Phang Nga's Khao Lak and Pakarang beaches.
The fishing village of Ban Nam Khem was nearly wiped out. Rescuers were also trying desperately to save two dolphins trapped for eight days in a small lake after they were swept more than a kilometre (half a mile) inland by giant tsunami waves.
The exhausted dolphins, one of whom appeared to be injured, were trapped in a 300 by 200 metre (yard) lake left behind by the wall of water about 1,400 metres inland behind an embankment, an environmentalist on the scene told Reuters.
Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, intent on rebuilding Thailand's "Land of Smiles" image as a safe tourist haven, promised a speedy recovery of hard-hit hotels and, perhaps more important, to get a system to warn against future tsunamis up and running in six months.
"We are doing everything we can to recover in two months," Thaksin told reporters during a tour of shattered Phi Phi. Despite his optimism, investment bank JP Morgan said in a research note the tsunamis had dealt a "hammer blow" to portions of the region's tourist industry. - Reuters
