UPDATED SATURDAY 1.1. Police post revised list of missing persons: 193 Finns still unaccounted for in Thailand

Foreign Ministry responds to charges of slow response

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By late on Friday evening, the police had received a good many responses following the publication of the list of names of those missing after the massive earthquake and tsunami that struck Southern Asia on December 26th.
      Several names have been removed, but others have replaced some of them.
      The police updated the names in a single list in the course of Friday afternoon, with 194 individuals in all marked as unaccounted for. A further four names were added later. On Saturday, the list was again revised, with 193 names remaining.
     
Red Cross search parties operating on the site in Southern Thailand admitted on Friday that it was unlikely anyone would now be found alive from the charnel-house that was once the picturesque beach resort of Khao Lak.
      Though not at the epicentre of the earthquake, this appears to be the area - in Thailand at least - which has suffered the most in terms of destruction and loss of life. It is also an area in which many of the hotels were used by Finnish travel operators.
      Search parties have already combed the surroundings of West Phuket and Khao Lak systematically, checking hospitals and monasteries, where some people may have taken refuge.
     
Many of those who have been found alive in such circumstances earlier in the week have been in such a confused and shocked state that they were unable to report their location or seek help.
      The Red Cross teams will continue to scour smaller health centres, and a glimmer of hope lies here, but the grim reality is that the likelihood of finding many such tourists alive is now largely theoretical.
      In practical terms, this means that Finland is facing a new year in which it is probable that something in the region of 200 of its citizens have perished in the waves of last Sunday’s catastrophe. Thirteen Finnish citizens have thus far been officially confirmed as dead by Thai authorities, along with one Finnish woman in Sri Lanka.
     
In her New Year's Day address to the nation, President Tarja Halonen deviated from her usual practice of summarising the past year and concentrated solely on the grim events of the last several days.
      She expressed her condolences to those who had lost loved ones and her gratitude to organisations and individuals for their work in helping victims, and she urged the nation to come together in a time of mourning, and to provide all possible asistance to those in need, both within the country and in the affected areas (see also attached story).
     
Although many people in Finland did still set off fireworks in the traditional noisy welcome to the New Year, things were rather more subdued than usual, and the rockets stopped fairly abruptly soon after midnight.
      This did not mean, however, that the emergency services were unemployed: vandalism, petty theft, fires, and domestic disturbances ensured police and ambulance crews were kept busy as normal.
      Many cities and towns had agreed during the past week that they would forgo civic fireworks displays in favour of donations to aid organisations bringing relief to the stricken regions around the coast of the Indian Ocean. Public New Year’s receptions were also cancelled.
     
There has been an enormous outpouring of generosity in the corporate sector and among the general public, fuelled in part by the closeness felt to the tragedy.
      At the same time the Foreign Ministry announced on Friday it was adding a further EUR 2 million in humanitarian aid to the victims of the Asian catastrophe, to be distributed via the Red Cross. Thus far the ministry has contributed EUR 4.5 million to support the work of various aid organisations in the region.
     
New Year's Day was declared a national day of mourning, with flags at half-staff in both Finland and neighbouring Sweden and Norway, where the probable death-tolls are even more horrendous.
      Latest figures indicate more than 3,000 Swedes believed to be in the tsunami area have still not called in, and there are fears of 1,000 fatalities at the very least. In Finland, Sweden, and in Norway, where more than 400 are still missing, such peacetime numbers are quite unprecedented, although Swedes were also badly affected in 1994 by the loss of the passenger ferry Estonia.
     
The National Bureau of Investigation naturally welcomed the news of names being removed on Friday and Saturday from the original list, as it was also a vindication of the controversial decision to make them public.
      Some relatives had raised objections on privacy grounds, but the move was defended by the argument that that any and every recourse that might locate survivors or identify the bodies of victims should be employed.
      The list has also been posted on the web portals of major print media and on Text-TV services of the principal television channels, as well as on the government’s own website. According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, all the lists will be taken down as and when search & rescue operations are formally halted.
      The NBI have further stressed that even this updated list is not necessarily a final version, and adjustments will be made as necessary in the future.
     
Anyone having information on the whereabouts of the people listed should contact local police or the NBI without delay. The email address is: ilmoitukset@krp.poliisi.fi, and the phone numbers to call are (09) 8388 6766 and (09) 8388 6868. Fax is also possible to (09) 8388 6676.
     
At a Ministry of Foreign Affairs press conference held on Friday afternoon, journalists questioned Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja on the fact that the government had not been called into emergency session immediately upon news of the disaster.
      Tuomioja defended the decision, stating that it was considered a more sensible course to discuss the response directly with the relevant rescue agencies.
      He also addressed the issue of the lack of a specialist Finnish rescue team on site in Thailand, arguing that the conditions there were not suited to the sort of post-earthquake searching through rubble for survivors which the FinnRescue unit is specialised in. Several members of the team are in fact assisting police in Thailand in any case.
     
While the Finnish government has come in for some criticism for its slow response to the gravity of the situation, Tuomioja was able to point to much harsher charges made against colleagues in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, where the public have questioned loudly why their citizens have not been airlifted out from the devastated areas with the same alacrity that the Finns have managed.
      He also noted that the sending of high-profile visitors to the affected region, in this case to Thailand, was often a counter-productive gesture, however much it might be seen as a show of empathy by officials. In many cases, the presence of ministers or heads of state in disaster zones only diverts vital rescue workers from their more important tasks.  
     
By late on Friday, some 1800 Finns had been brought home from Thailand and 645 from Sri Lanka. Around 480 remained in Thailand at this point and the intention was to airlft them out in the course of Friday night and Saturday.
      Many of the most recent arrivals at Helsinki-Vantaa International are seriously injured and require hospital treatment, often for wounds that have since gone septic.
      A Finnair passenger jet was converted into a flying intensive care unit to bring some seriously injured victims home in the early hours of Saturday morning (see attached story ), and private medivac ambulance flights also carried a number of stretcher patients from Bangkok and Phuket.
     
After the Finnair medivac flight took off, information was received that a further one or two Finnish patients remained in Thai hospitals elsewhere, and these will be repatriated as soon as possible.
      It may also be that Finnish aircraft will be put into service to bring home Swedish citizens and other nationals. A request to this effect has been received from Stockholm.
     
Despite a reluctant admission that he held out little hope that more than a handful of survivors might still be found, Foreign Minister Tuomioja noted that the search for Finns continues in the affected areas.
      There are currently 12 Foreign Ministry staffers in Thailand handling repatriation and aid matters. A further 12 police officers are on the ground, and another seven left for the area on Friday night.
      Some 40 Finnish Red Cross workers are in Thailand, and half of these will remain behind for relief work even after all the Finnish tourists have been evacuated out.

More on this subject:
 Halonen expresses condolences in New Year’s Day Address, and speaks of "Finland’s largest peacetime catastrophe"
 Medivac flight patients in hospital care
 Revised police list of missing persons, Saturday 1.1.2005
 Finnish forensic team leaving for Thailand

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