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General News
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2006-11-26 23:14:31-05
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2004 Tsunami victims to be buried finally
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Bangkok, Nov 27: After almost two years of trying to identify victims of the December 2004 tsunami, authorities in Thailand have decided to bury 513 bodies of the tsunami victims that have gone unclaimed or unidentified. Burial ceremonies will begin on December 1 and last six days at the Bang Maruan cemetery in the hardest-hit province of Phang Nga, just north of the resort island of Phuket, police colonel Khemmarin Hassiri said. The bodies include those of 103 victims who have been identified, but whose families have yet to collect the remains, Khemmarin told AFP. The 2004 disaster killed almost 6 000 people and left about 3 000 missing. They include 72 Myanmar nationals, 28 Thais, one Filipino, one Turk and one Nepalese, he said. The other 410 bodies have still not been identified, he added. The bodies have been kept in a morgue that was meant to be temporary. Roughly half of the victims in Thailand were foreign holidaymakers. Thailand and the United States are set to deploy the first tsunami warning system in the Indian Ocean next week. Thailand believes the system is essential to reassuring tourists about their safety, although tourism in the tsunami-hit region is already on the rebound.
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