Finnish, Swedish, and Norwegian Prime Ministers to visit Thailand

Investigation into handling of aftermath of tsunami disaster

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Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen (Centre) will visit Thailand on January 16th - 19th. Also taking part in the visit will be Sweden's Prime Minister Göran Persson and Norway's Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik.
      The aim of the visit is to thank local officials and ordinary residents of the areas hit by the tsunami last month for the help extended to tourists from the three countries.
      The three also plan to discuss participation in reconstruction of the afflicted area as well as humanitarian aid, and plan to meet Nordic crisis workers in the region.
     
A board of inquiry is to be set up in Finland to assess the actions of Finnish officials in the wake of the disaster.Kirsti Rissanen, chief of staff at the Ministry of Justice, said on Tuesday that there needs to be clarification of various aspects of action taken by the officials, including what access they had to various sources of information, how the information was distributed to different officials, and how decisions were made.
      At a press conference on Tuesday, Pentti Partanen, head of the Department for Rescue Services at the Ministry of the Interior, said that medical considerations were the main factor in sending two rescue groups of the Finnish Red Cross to the area, rather than units of the Finn Rescue Force (FRF).
      "It was felt that getting the injured back home required medical expertise", Partanen said.
      Pentti Haatainen, the head of one of the Red Cross teams, saw the deployment of the medical teams to be the right solution. "They can immediately evaluate whether or not a patient can be moved."
     
A report that the body a Finnish victim of the disaster had been identified has proven to be unfounded.
      It had earlier been reported that a Finnish victim had been identified at a Thai hospital, but the body proved to be that of a person of another nationality.
      Currently 183 Finns are listed as missing in the aftermath of the tsunami in Southeast Asia. Some of the names on the list are of people with dual nationality, which means that their names could appear on the list of another country, such as Sweden.
      Göran Wennqvist of the National Bureau of Investigation says that the NBI's list of missing people is the only official one. Other information that has come out in public has been based on lists kept by hospitals. "They have had people listed as being dead, who are in fact, alive and hospitalised."
      He adds that the only officially confirmed fatality is the Finnish man who died in hospital in Helsinki after being evacuated from Thailand.
     
There have been cases in which people's names have appeared on lists of missing persons, even though they were never in Asia. There has even been at least one case in which someone has reported a friend as missing as a practical joke.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Mourning of catastrophe victims begins in schools and workplaces (4.1.2005)

Helsingin Sanomat