Around 250 Finns still missing in crisis area as hopes fade

Authorities fear steep rise in deaths in prospect

print this

On Wednesday evening, nearly four days after huge waves brought death and destruction on a biblical scale to coastal communities all around the Indian Ocean, roughly 250 Finns were thought to be still missing, including entire families and young infants. Even if people hitherto unaccounted for are discovered from evacuation flights, the authorities fear the number of Finnish deaths in the disaster will rise steeply, possibly into three figures.
      President Tarja Halonen and Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen both voiced the need for the country to come together in a time of grief.
      "The number of victims may well rise very high", said Vanhanen, alluding to the fact that until now only fourteen deaths have been noted by Thai listings, insurance companies, and travel operators, while the government itself has only received official confirmation of four deaths.
      "The numbers of missing persons are alarmingly large", went on Vanhanen. He commented that he feared a large number of people would never be recovered from the aftermath of the catastrophe.
      President Halonen, who expressed her condolences on Wednesday, hinted at much the same thing. "Finland is in a state of mourning. Those who have experienced this catastrophe through their nearest and dearest will require all our support in the weeks ahead", the President said.
     
The two leaders stopped short of calling for flags to be flown at half-mast across the country on New Year’s Day, a move suggested by Swedish Prime Minister Göran Persson, whose nation faces an even more grievous death-toll as upwards of 1,500 charter tourists from Sweden are still unaccounted for in Thai resorts.
      Scandinavian countries appear to be bearing the brunt of losses among European holidaymakers, as the Phuket and Krabi resort areas were particularly popular with Germans and people from Finland, Sweden, Denmark, and Norway. Several hundred Norwegians are also among the missing.
      Nearly all European governments, including that in Helsinki, have come under public criticism for the slow response to what is now being seen as a disaster with repercussions well outside the immediate area of devastation.
     
Thus far, the Finnish death-toll is 13 persons in Thailand and one in Sri Lanka. Eye-witness accounts nevertheless already indicate the number of fatalities is a great deal higher.
      There are currently Finnish field workers combing through hospitals, monasteries, evacuation centres and other places where injured persons might be found. The bodies of Finnish victims will begin to be brought home next week.
     
More groups of Finnish tourists arrived back from Thailand on emergency flights in the course of Wednesday and on Thursday morning. Thursday’s two planeloads saw passengers with more severe injuries than before. Several were on stretchers and were taken away by ambulance from Helsinki-Vantaa Airport.
      Speaking on television in the morning, Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja stressed the urgent need to get the seriously injured out of overcrowded hospitals and home as quickly as possible, in order to ensure that the number of deaths did not rise still further through infection.
      Plans are under way to arrange ambulance flights for the gravely injured.
     
Thus far around 1,500 Finns have been evacuated out of the affected areas of Southern Thailand, around half of the total number believed to have been holidaying there.
      More than a dozen children aged between 3 and 15 have returned without their parents. This does not necessarily mean one or both of the parents is missing. They could be injured or could have stayed behind to care for another family member.
      Evacuation flights will continue until the weekend, and even beyond that if necessary. Travel operators and the Foreign Ministry have arranged that all Finns wishing to return home should be brought out, including back-packers who were not travelling with organised charter tours. Some individuals have been unwilling to leave the disaster area until they have received word of the fate of relatives who are missing.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Fourteen Finns confirmed dead, hundreds still missing in tidal wave catastrophe (29.12.2004)

Helsingin Sanomat