NELSON CHING / SIPA PRESS FOR TIME

POST-MORTEM: Tsunami victims in Thailand are lined up after processing

Naming the Dead
	With hopes of finding survivors fading, relatives and scientists turn to the grim task of identifying victims
	By Andrew Marshall | Phuket

Posted Monday, January 10, 2005; 20:00 HKT
Ria Ekkelkamp, a 53-year-old from the Netherlands, has a gap between her two front teeth. Norwegian toddler Ragnar Bang Ericsson has a small triangular birthmark on his lower back. Jacobo Hassan, a Mexican, has an I-shaped scar below his right knee. Japanese woman Chie Machida wears a pink-jeweled navel ring.

Such distinguishing details, some barely registered in happier times, leap out from the heartbreaking leaflets still fluttering from notice boards at morgues and hospitals near Thailand's tsunami-blasted resorts. There are photos of the missing, too: they are always smiling, it seems, snapped at weddings or children's birthday parties, or on the same idyllic beaches where disaster later struck. With hopes of finding survivors almost extinguished, the focus in Thailand has now switched to the grim task of identifying some 4,000 bodies. At Yan Yao temple, a makeshift morgue near the worst-hit resorts of Khao Lak, forensic experts in protective clothing and masks pace through wreaths of vapor from the dry ice used to preserve the decomposing corpses. They are part of a disaster-victim-identification (DVI) operation of unprecedented scale and complexity, involving more than 300 personnel from 30 countries. While time-consuming DNA tests are a crucial part of their work, unique marks—moles, scars, tattoos—can also prove decisive in reuniting victims with their grieving families.

Ten days after the tsunami, Thai volunteers were still unearthing corpses. By the time they reach the morgues, most bodies are too decomposed for their ethnicity to be visually determined. Eighteen hours a day, in two shifts, forensics experts work methodically through the morgues. Each corpse is numbered, and under Interpol-approved protocol, must be positively identified by dental records, fingerprints or DNA before being released to their families and, in non-Thai cases, repatriated. Forensic dentists remove teeth or parts of the jaw for lab tests, biopsies are taken for DNA testing, and fingerprints are lifted. Relatives supply samples of their own DNA in the form of blood and mouth swabs, and provide other "antemortem" information such as the victims' medical records. All this data is computer-crunched at the DVI Information Management Centre in Phuket, which tries to match victims to families. It's a daunting task even for seasoned experts such as the two American teams sent to Thailand from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), a Hawaii-based unit best known for its efforts to find and identify U.S. soldiers missing in action. Johnie Webb, a senior JPAC adviser now in Thailand, says: "We've never been involved in anything of this magnitude; 9/11 pales in comparison."

Speed is important, but accuracy imperative, stresses Karl Kent, an Australian Federal Police forensic pathologist and the senior foreigner in the Thai-led DVI operation. "The families must be entirely confident that the loved one, when returned, is in fact the person they lost," he says. The science of DVI is relatively straightforward, says Robert Jensen, president of Houston-based disaster-management firm Kenyon, which has dispatched forensic scientists and mortuary technicians to sites of mass-fatality events worldwide, including New York City after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. Those working on the bodies know that thousands of grieving relatives depend upon their efforts. "It isn't rocket science," says Jensen. "It's harder than rocket science, because it's blended with human emotion."

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	In the Wake of Tragedy [Jan. 10, 2005] On the morning of Dec. 26, an earthquake off Sumatra was followedby a massive tsunami. Asia's suffering touched the world Tallying the Damage [Jan. 10, 2005] Asia's engine room wasn't swamped, but the waves wiped out countless jobs and rebuilding may take years Europe: Lost In The Waves [Jan. 10, 2005] The tsunami engulfed Europe too, as millions grieved for those caught in its maw and looked for ways to help After The Flood [Jan. 10, 2005] With disease looming, the world launches a massive relief effort. Will the aid reach the victims in time? How To Help [Jan. 10, 2005] A guide to donating and how to contact relief organizations on the ground More Related Items | Search all issues of TIME Magazine