Forensics: How to ID the Bodies

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Many of those with missing friends or relatives cannot bear to sit and wait while the scientists complete their work. Idan Geva and some other young professionals flew to Thailand from Israel to search for two friends--Aya Shapira, 27, and her boyfriend Uzi Sagi, 28. "They were staying somewhere in the Khao Lak area," says Geva. "We're searching the area for some kind of clue." Working on little food or sleep, Geva's group has pored over lists of victims on a website so heavily trafficked by bereaved relatives that it sometimes crashes and has examined hundreds of corpses despite warnings from Thai police to stay away for health reasons. "It wasn't a pretty sight," says Geva, "but it's something that needs to be done."

One interesting clue finally emerged. In a Khao Lak dive shop, Sagi's and Shapira's names appeared on a waiting list for a diving trip, along with their resort name and room number. Geva's group--which met with members of ZAKA, an Israeli volunteer organization famous for collecting body parts of terrorism victims to give them proper Jewish burials--combed through the wrecked resort but found nothing more. The pair had perhaps been washed out to sea. Geva's only hope is that experts will eventually identify the two on the basis of the dental records and DNA samples his group brought from Israel.

For many of those left behind, hope that loved ones might still be alive has given way to a desire for some kind of closure. A few days after the tsunami, a Thai woman named Somsap Sukdi went to Phuket's provincial hall to pin up pictures of her missing German husband, Markus Knoesel. Now, carrying their 2-year-old son Jimmy in her arms, Somsap, tears streaming down her face, slowly walks the length of the notice board, removing those pictures. Knoesel's body was positively identified the previous day. "He's not missing anymore," she says softly, a widow at 30. --By Andrew Marshall/Phuket