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Thousands of Tourists Missing

By Glenn Frankel
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 30, 2004; 4:43 PM

LONDON, Dec. 30 -- The photo of a young Swedish father sobbing in his hospital bed in Thailand after he was reunited with his 2-year-old son following the death of his wife appeared in newspapers throughout Europe on Thursday, symbolizing this continent's sense of loss and horror over southeast Asia's tsunamis.

Europe is reeling from the tsunamis -- not just because the ever-rising death toll has surpassed 117,000, but because of the growing realization that the dead could include several thousand tourists who had traveled to southern Asia for the Christmas holidays to escape Europe's dismal winter for warm beaches and sunny skies.

Sweden appears to be the hardest hit. While the official death count so far is 44, Prime Minister Goran Persson told a news conference in Stockholm the final count will be in the hundreds and could exceed 1,000. His government estimates that 1,400 Swedish tourists remain missing, but the Associated Press cited warnings from travel agencies that more than 3,000 Swedes remain unaccounted for.

Declaring Jan. 1 a national day of mourning, Persson told reporters, "We're facing a New Year's celebration unlike anything we've seen before. This is an extraordinarily sad and serious situation."

"When the country's schools reopen and work places open their doors again, a lot of chairs will be empty," the prime minister said.

The country was captivated by the tale of Hannes Bergstrom, age 2, who was separated from his family during the storm and found unconscious by a hotel swimming pool on the resort island of Khao Lak in Thailand. He was medevaced to a hospital and reunited with his father, Marko Karkkainen, whose weeping photograph dominated the European press on Thursday. But Hannes's mother, Cecilia, remained among the missing.

"Stupid Giant Wave," read the headline in Aftonbladet, the afternoon tabloid, quoting the little boy's words.

Besides the Swedes, some 1,000 Germans, 600 Italians, 430 Norwegians, 219 Danes and 200 Finns are among the missing, according to news service accounts. Most were visiting resort areas in Thailand or Sri Lanka. The Thai government has put the total of confirmed Scandinavian dead at 95 so far.

"We're facing an incomprehensible tragedy that keeps growing by the hours," Norwegian Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik told reporters in Oslo, according to the Associated Press. "We are steadily getting new numbers of dead, missing and homeless."

Britain has officially confirmed only 28 dead so far, among the 6,000 British tourists estimated to be in the region. But the country has led the way in charitable donations, with the government pledging $100 million for the relief effort and individuals adding $50 million more.

That so many European tourists were among the victims "has helped to bring it home to people here because it somehow has made it all seem more real," said Laura Conrad, a spokeswoman for Save the Children UK. "A lot of us know someone who was in the region for the holidays."

European airports were filled with travelers returning home from sites of devastation, many of them bearing photographs and amateur video footage of the tsunamis along with their own personal accounts of tragedy, bravery and the senseless, random nature of who was swept away and who survived the storm.

Many British newspapers featured the story of Louise Willgrass, 43, a mother of four, who had just got out of her family's rental car in Phuket, Thailand, to buy suntan lotion at a nearby supermarket when the tidal wave hit. It swept the car carrying Nigel Willgrass and the four children inland.

"The car was filling up with water but we couldn't open the doors," he told the Daily Mail. "We hit the top of a palm tree and the window smashed and somehow the back door came open . . . We managed to get on to the roof of a building."

Willgrass later went back to search for his wife among the flooded remains of the supermarket. He eventually found her body in a hospital morgue.

The British press also focused on the death of actor-director Richard Attenborough's daughter, her mother-in-law and his 14-year-old granddaughter. A fashion photographer, a newlywed couple, a garden designer and a conservationist were also among the British dead. One woman, Sharon Howard, lost her fiance, who had just proposed to her on Christmas Day, and her two sons, ages 8 and 6.

But Sweden remained the most affected by the disaster. Ingrid Iremark, head of the government's press and information department, said up to 25,000 Swedes had traveled to Thailand for the holiday season and thousands remained unaccounted for. Newspapers published pages of photographs of the missing and the dead, sometimes featuring entire families.

King Carl XVI Gustaf, Queen Silvia and members of the government attended a special memorial ceremony at Stockholm's Storkyrkan cathedral, while Foreign Minister Laila Freivalds rushed to the site of the devastation. She compared Sweden's loss to the 1994 car ferry disaster in which more than 500 Swedes died.

"Everybody in Sweden knows somebody who in some way or other has connections with someone who was in Phuket," Iremark said. "It's a very sad and traumatic time."