Two thousand or more people have been wrongly listed as likely victims of the Indian Ocean tsunami, an investigation has revealed. Alan Morison and Piyanuch Kwanrod report. Local and international media that descended on Phuket, Phang Nga and Phi Phi for the first-anniversary remembrance services on December 26 were supplied with figures of dead and missing that are demonstrably inaccurate.

"Tsunami 2004 Nam Chai Thai," a small book given to local and international journalists on the anniversary, combines Dead and Missing figures and says: "By adding the number of people registered as missing (2,965) and assuming that they perished, the number of dead victims amounted to 8,360."

However, figures supplied by the embassies of 16 countries indicate that the ultimate toll of the tsunami in Thailand will be less than 6,000 dead.

As forensic police continue to give names to the unidentified victims, the Thai Tsunami Victim Identification team, mostly now made up of officers from Thailand, updates its records. But for privacy reasons, only individual embassies can reveal the numbers of dead and missing for each nation.

In the official tsunami booklet, 917 foreigners are still listed as missing. Yet the 16 countries in the Post survey indicate that only 59 of their nationals are still missing. These countries have a total of more than 2000 dead. So their collective ratio of dead to missing is 2042:59, a far cry from the official 5395:2940.

If the Thai government can supply names for the 917 foreigners listed as missing, then officials from the 16 nations appear to have no idea who 858 of them might be. Seven of the 16 countries have reported no missing.

The co-Chief of Staff of the TTVI, Colonel Pornprasert Kanjanarin, said,
?Those [official government] figures are compiled by the Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation, largely from relatives who report people missing, but there has been no adjustment to the figures. Those reported missing will simply be added to the database.?

As of 17 January, of the 5395 confirmed victims there were 763 nameless bodies in containers at Baan Maruan cemetery in Phang Nga that had yet to be identified by the TTVI. This is where most of the ?missing? will likely to be found eventually.

Provincial governments also still quote large numbers of ?missing? as follows: Phuket ? 279 dead, 478 missing; Phang Nga ? 4,225 dead, 1,655 missing; and Krabi ? where most deaths were recorded on the island of Phi Phi ? 721 dead, 544 missing.

What the new cast on the figures demonstrates is that the big wave had two sides to its nature. The awesome, deadly power of the wall of water was balanced by a benign aftermath. Instead of carrying victims out into the ocean, never to be seen again, the small number of missing indicates that the tsunami simply swirled the bodies along the holiday coast, then deposited them back on shore or close to the beaches ? which explains why some resorts reported no fatalities yet had bodies deposited there.

Amateur video footage of the tsunami confirms the swirling motion and oceanographic researcher Somkiat Khokiattiwong, of the Phuket Marine Biological Centre, said that, in any event, there were no strong currents along the Andaman coast at that time of the year to drag people out to sea. The efficient response of the Thai military and volunteers ensured that the bodies of victims were quickly recovered from the sea.

The likelihood is that in the post-tsunami confusion, many people who simply moved to other parts of Thailand were reported as missing by anxious friends and relatives. Police have reportedly gone to premises to investigate, only to have the door opened by the ?Missing? person.

While the international media, especially CNN and the BBC, was blamed for exaggerating the damage and destruction on Phuket, the official number of missing has been wildly wide of the mark for 13 months now, without this gross inaccuracy being acknowledged or corrected.

The below list details the numbers of foreign dead and missing in Thailand from the tsunami on 26 December 2004, as compiled by the individual embassies.

Sweden was thought to have most victims, but now Germany narrowly tops the known toll. Of the seven Finns still missing, six are children. The British tally includes victims from Sri Lanka and the Maldives.

Death certificates have been issued for four of the six missing Britons. The Italian toll includes some victims with dual citizenship who are probably also listed by other countries. The United States tally includes several Asian-Americans and an 11-day-old baby.

Countries with dead and missing:

Germany - 534 dead, 14 missing
Sweden - 526 dead, 17 missing
Finland - 177 dead, 7 missing
Britain - 150 dead, 6 missing
Switzerland - 110 dead, 5 missing
France - 90 dead, 5 missing
Austria - 86 dead, 2 missing
Norway - 84 dead, 0 missing
Korea - 78 dead, 0 missing
Hong Kong - 40 dead, 2 missing
Italy - 38, 0 missing
Holland - 36 dead, 0 missing
Japan - 28 dead, 1 missing
United States - 24 dead, 0 missing
Australia - 23 dead, 0 missing
Canada - 18 dead, 0 missing