Irwan Shah Bin Abdullah
🇹🇭 Khunying Porntip Chides Hotel Bosses
Phangnga – A large number of decomposed bodies of hotel and resort workers have been left unidentified at two morgues in Takua Pa district because their employers fail to show up to identify them, said Khunying Porntip Rojanasunan, who supervises the tsunami victims identification unit at Wat Yanyao, yesterday.
`These dead people are still in uniforms with hotel names and logos clearly on them. Some still with room keys tightly grasped in their hands. With this material evidence, the corpses can be easily identified but nobody has shown up to claim them,’ she said.
Khunying Porntip did not reveal the exact number of the abandoned bodies but said there were `hundreds’, many of them believed to be foreign workers.
According to Takua Pa’s record of registration, there were 7,070 registered Burmese workers, 58 Laotians, and 14 Cambodians in the district. However, NGOs dealing with immigrant workers said there were more than 10,000 Burmese workers in Takua Pa.
‘It is possible the hoteliers have failed to identify their dead employees for fear the death toll would damage the hotel business,’ Khunying Porntip said at yesterday’s meeting of senior government officials, including Pol Gen Noppadol Somboonsub, at the district office.
She handed a list of unidentified bodies believed to be those of hotel and resort workers to Pol Gen Noppadol, who will on Feb 3 take over the task of identifying the corpses kept at Wat Yanyao from the forensic team led by Khunying Porntip.
According to the incomplete list, the dead were believed to be employees of Ayara Villas, Pakarang Resort, Theptaro Lagoon Beach Resort, The Palm Andaman Beach Resort & Spa, Bamboo Orchid Beach Resort, Khao Lak Sunset, Khao Lak Seaview Resort and Spa, Gred & Noi Khao Lak Bangalow, Southsea Pakarang Resort, Sofitel Magic Lagoon Resort and Spa Inn, Khao Lak Countryside Resort, Khao Lak Orchid Resort, and Bangsak Beach Resort.
Tom Racette, Accor Asia’s public communication manager, said the company’s Sofitel Khao Lak hotel in Phangnga had done its best to search for its missing employees and was willing to help their families find their loved ones.
The Dec 26 tidal waves killed 32 of the hotel’s employees while 16 others were still missing, said Mr Racette. The hotel had no Burmese immigrant workers, he added.
Khunying Porntip advised hotel operators and relatives of the missing hotel workers to contact her unit at Wat Yanyao before Feb 3, when all the bodies still unidentified are to be moved to Phuket, where autopsies and identification will be conducted by the international Disaster Victims Identification Centre (DVI).
Her unit yesterday handed over to the DVI the first batch of 330 Caucasian bodies kept at Wat Bang Muang, one of the two morgues in tuaries in Phangnga province. The transfer of Caucasian bodies from Wat Bang Muang was likely to be completed today.
On Friday, the remaining 1,000-plus Caucasian bodies would be moved from Wat Yanyao to Phuket, said a senior official.The dispute over the corpse transfer was settled yesterday when Khunying Porntip, the DVI and police agreed to sort the bodies being kept in Phangnga into Thais, Caucasians, Asians other than Thai, and the unidentifiable. About 700 Thai bodies will remain in Takua Pa.