Posted on 12/31/2004 6:48:19 AM PST by Dundee
Aussie toll may eclipse Bali
THE Australian death toll from Sunday's horrific tsunami could be much worse than previously feared, with the number of Australians killed running into the hundreds.
As the international death toll rose above 126,000 yesterday, Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty warned the number of Australian victims could dwarf the Bali bombing tragedy in which 202 people died, including 88 Australians, making it Australia's worst peace-time loss of life on foreign shores.
Senior officials warned yesterday it could take up to six months for many of the bodies to be repatriated because of the extreme difficulties in identification. Most of the corpses recovered are beyond recognition and will require DNA identification. In Indonesia's Aceh province, where more than 80,000 died, aircraft dropped supplies to isolated villages yesterday as the relief operation finally swung into gear.
Most of the Australian victims were in southern Thailand where more than 2000 foreign tourists are confirmed dead out of a total of more than 4500. Asked if the Australian toll -- which stood at 11 yesterday -- could be in the hundreds, Mr Keelty said: "Well, yes."
"With 1250 Australians missing, clearly the numbers are going to be a lot larger than the 41 who we have grave fears for today, as well as the confirmed dead," he said.
"The figure will be somewhere in between but you've got to expect that in a disaster of this size -- where we are talking tens of thousands of people (dead) -- the percentage of Australians who will not have survived this will be much greater than the figures that we are currently looking at."
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said yesterday that of the 1250 Australians who might have been in the areas affected by the tsunamis, more than 850 might have been in the Phuket region of southern Thailand and more than 200 in Sri Lanka.
DFAT said last night it revised down its list of those for whom it held grave concerns to 39 including 34 in Thailand, two in Indonesia, two in Sri Lanka and one in the Maldives. DFAT said 28 Australians were in hospital, 23 in Thailand, four in Sri Lanka, and one in the Maldives.
Australia's new ambassador to Thailand, Bill Paterson, said the bodies of seven Australians killed by the tsunami had been returned home.
"We have got, I think, seven Australian bodies out," he said in Phuket. "All confirmed Australian dead have now been either cremated here, at the wishes of the relatives, or returned to Australia."
More Australian survivors returned home from Thailand and Sri Lanka yesterday with harrowing tales of the huge waves triggered by Sunday's magnitude 9.0 earthquake off the coast of Sumatra.
Prue Pettett, her brother Luc and their friend Melissa Goundrey, from Queensland's Sunshine Coast, said they had a faulty alarm clock to thank for their survival. "If the alarm clock had worked we would have been right on the beach and struck by the wave full-on," said Ms Goundrey.
Mr Keelty said many of the Australian victims might never be found as they may have been swept out to sea.
"We know from the Bali experience that it took three to four months for some of the bodies to be repatriated. In this situation -- the scale of it -- the spread of it is much larger and I think the processes will be very difficult to implement and people can expect a much longer delay for bodies to be repatriated." The AFP despatched a 14-strong team to the Phuket region yesterday, including family liaison officers to deal with the families of victims, communication specialists and psychological counsellors. Mr Keelty also spoke to Thai, British and New Zealand police chiefs about the identification task.
The leader of Australia's 31-member team Karl Kent urged relatives to be "patient", saying identification and repatriation of bodies would be a process that would take longer than the 3-4 months experienced in the case of some of the victims of the Bali bombing.
Darn...praying even more.
Why is there such an effort among the media to compare this natural disaster to Islamonazi attacks like the Bali Bombing and the 9/11 attacks?
One was the result of malicious efforts of extremists and the fault rests entirely on their hands.
Are these figures calculated by counting visas of visitors to the country, or do they know these 1,250 were in the very beach area hit by the tsunami?
The 1250 figure is Australians believed likely to have been in the disaster zone who haven't been found yet despite the best efforts of consular staff and who haven't made contact with anyone at home. It's not just people who were in the countries effected - it's much more refined than that.
The majority are probably safe. But even if 75% are safe, that still leaves 300 or so who aren't - and nobody would be surprised if we're looking at actual fatality numbers in that range.
what a stupid article by a brain-dead journalist...
trying to compare a natural disaster to a humans-killing-humans mass murder
it's apples vs. oranges
I think the comparison is being used in Australia simply because the Bali bombings were the largest loss of civilian life ever inflicted on Australia ever, regardless of cause, and it was so recent. Australia has been very lucky in the regard, large natural disasters are very rare, no other large killing disasters eg plane crash etc. I'm sure everyone knows it's apples vs oranges, it's just the closest statistic we have to compare....
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