Most bodies of Finnish tsunami victims returned to Finland

Three adults and 11 children still missing

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Coffins bearing the remains of three children who died in the tsunami last winter arrived at Helsinki-Vantaa Airport on Wednesday. A memorial ceremony was held at the airport in the presence of their next of kin. It was the 39th such event since the disaster on December 26th.
      The process of identifying bodies of the victims has proceeded unexpectedly well. At first it was feared that dozens of the victims might never be found or identified.
      Now the remains of 164 of the 178 victims listed as missing have been identified.
      A total of 154 bodies have been flown from Thailand to Finland, and one body has been brought from Sri Lanka. Five of the Finns were taken to Sweden, and one to Greece.
      Three adults and 11 children remain missing. Officials do not know if they are still lost at sea, or if they might be among the more than 1,000 unidentified bodies that are being kept in cold storage.
     
Ismo Kopra, an officer of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), who heads the Finnish unit of the international victim identification group in the Thai resort of Phuket, remains optimistic.
      "We have a great desire to find all of the victims and to continue our work as long as possible", Kopra said in a telephone interview.
      He says that although most of the unidentified victims are Thai, it is possible that there may be Finns among them.
      He adds that the identification work gets more difficult with the passage of time. In many cases, fingerprint identification is no longer possible, leaving DNA analysis as the only remaining option. DNA has been used in the identification of many of the child victims.
      Most of the bodies that remain missing are those of children, who usually do not have as many records of distinguishing physical features, such as dental X-rays, as adults do.
     
The work is both slow and expensive. The NBI has been granted extra funding for the effort in a supplementary budget.
      The ten members of the Finnish victim identification unit are expected to continue their work at least until the end of this year, regardless of whether or not all of the Finns are accounted for at that time; Thailand has asked for international help, and all of the experts on the scene are working on behalf of all victims.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Report criticises actions of Finnish officials in tsunami aftermath (15.6.2005)
  Swedish tsunami report criticises Swedish officials, praises Finland (8.6.2005)
  Problems with funding delay identification of child victims of tsunami (12.5.2005)
  DNA testing little used in identifying Finnish tsunami victims (4.4.2005)
  As many as 100 Finns could remain unaccounted for after tsunami (9.2.2005)

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