KOH PHI PHI, Thailand (2 Jan 2005) -- A WHITE flag is raised in the ruins of Phi Phi Island, signalling yet more death. No one knows for sure how many people died here – 600, 1000, 1500 were numbers being bandied about yesterday – but Australian victims of the killer tsunami almost certainly lay beneath the tangled wreckage of its famed resorts. The white flag designates a new find of human remains. Bulldozers clear a path for the Thai workers who are sweating in their elbow-length rubber gloves and face masks. The young men, volunteers from Bangkok, go in gingerly, picking their way through the wasteland of shattered buildings and debris. You don't want to tread on a nail, not in this dreadful place, with its reek of death and skinny, haunted-looking cats foraging in the rubble. The body is that of a young woman, slender but otherwise unrecognisable after lying in the heat for six days. They wrap it gently in blue plastic and suspend it from a pole, which they lift to their shoulders, grunting with the effort. There is no disrespect on Phi Phi, only necessity. Later, the body will be zipped into a bag and hauled by handcart along the seafront made famous in the Leonardo DiCaprio movie The Beach. Buddhist monks are blessing the sad pile of about 30 body bags deposited at the end of the main jetty. They will be shipped to Krabi, across the bay, where victim identification teams from Israel and Switzerland are spearheading the effort to put names and nationalities to the dead. Damien Kloot, of the Gold Coast, has made the rounds on Phi Phi and Krabi searching for his Japanese-born wife Yumi Tanaka. She was last seen by the jetty near Phi Phi. At first he thought she might have reached safety or been picked up by a rescue party. But after seven days of aching silence, he knows the time for a miracle has probably come and gone. Mr Kloot suspects that Yumi is beneath one of the massive new sand banks created by the force of the tsunami. The Phi Phi resorts were dotted across a short isthmus lapped on each side by the emerald sea. It was hit from both directions on December 26. "I think my wife is under the sand . . . it's probably a DNA job now," Mr Kloot said. Missing AFL footballer Troy Broadbridge, 24, was also on Phi Phi Island honeymooning with his wife, Trisha. His father, Wayne, was trying to make his way to Phi Phi yesterday with his son's dental records. Trisha remains in hospital in Bangkok. A family friend, Anthony Mott, 27, of Perth, has been searching for information about Broadbridge since last Tuesday. "I'm just trying to do what I can . . . it's not much, because no one knows anything," he said. The Melbourne footballer's picture has now joined the hundreds of the missing pinned on bulletin boards at Phuket city hall. From her Bangkok hospital bed, Trisha said she was walking with her husband from Phi Phi Island Village Resort to the view point when the tsunami hit. "We watched the tide come in rapidly for a couple of seconds and, when we realised it wasn't going to stop at the shore, Troy suggested we jump on the balcony of a bungalow on the beach. "The wave got bigger and bigger, Troy told me to keep my head above the water because at this stage we didn't realise the force and power it had. "The force of the wave uprooted the bungalow in front, which in turn hit me, and I was swept away by the wave. | | Thai rescue workers carry away a dead body from the devastated Thai island of Phi Phi. Thailand's confirmed death toll from the tidal wave disaster approached 5,000, including more than 2,400 foreign holidaymakers, and bodies were still being found a week after the tragedy. "This was the last time I saw Troy." The official toll of Australians in Thailand yesterday stood at 12 dead with serious concerns for more than 100 missing. Just how many Australians were among the 6000 tourists on the island when the waves struck has still not been established. Another 6000 Thais lived or worked on Phi Phi. Relief effort co-ordinator Charlie Taechar said yesterday about 400 bodies had been recovered. The devastation meant the dead lay where they fell for three days before recovery squads began removing them. The living had priority. Injured tourists – such as cadet Australian army officer Timothy Cook, 20, of Toowong, Brisbane – were evacuated first from Phi Phi, followed by the shocked survivors, many of whom continue to marvel that they had lived through the disaster. "The wave went right over the island," said Michael Tyrrell, 21, of North Avoca on the NSW central coast. "I just turned and ran. I was lucky." The most powerful waves thundered in from the west, shearing the tops off 15m coconut palms. But people fleeing those walls of water ran into another set of big waves from the east. "The island got hit from both sides," Mr Cook said. By yesterday, the southern section of the resort had been searched and largely cleared of bodies. But hundreds more are thought to remain in the devastated market area and in the rubble of the popular Phi Phi Princess resort. Mr Taechar's estimate was 200, but a weary Thai ambulance officer shook his head and said: "One thousand dead, minimum. Maybe 1500 – we don't know." Such is the state of the bodies, visual identification is impossible in most cases. Mr Taechar said recovery crews could not even distinguish between Westerners and Thais. Help is finally pouring in, though. On Saturday, US warships appeared on the horizon and began transferring loads of supplies and heavy equipment. The Japanese are here, too. A 40-strong contingent from the Tokyo Disaster Relief Team, specialists in earthquake rescue, have pulled six corpses from the wreckage of Phi Phi. A French survivor is showing one of the Japanese where he thinks missing members of a Swedish family might be. The father was under there when the wave came, he said, pointing to a flattened section of roofing. The two boys were in another room, but he can't tell where that would have been. A white-haired man is looking on, saying nothing. He is a relative, just in from Sweden, and desperate for news of his loved ones. "We will dig," said the Japanese earthquake relief team member. A Thai team made a discovery nearby, not of a body, but a suitcase belonging to a Thai man who flew from Bangkok to Phuket. His December 7 plane ticket is intact and legible. One of the Thais handed it to me. A week after the tsunami, it is still damp. |
