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Home » Background » The 2004 Thailand tsunami
Many of us will remember December 26, 2004 when a devastating tsunami hit Thailand and surrounding countries. In Thailand alone, more than 5000 victims were reported, while the same number were reported missing.
Among the certain victims, who mainly fell in the provinces of Panggna, Krabi and Phuket, were 36 Dutch and 10 Belgians.
A large number of the missing will have been swallowed up by the sea, but a part of them has also been recovered, whose identity had to be determined. Now, 12 years later, authorities are still trying to identify victims, if possible through DNA testing.
The identification of victims is still ongoing at the cemetery in Panggna. Naturally, the help of family members is necessary to complete the identification through DNA testing. More than 400 remains of people are still buried in Panggna, which are not claimed by anyone.
In these days of December, let's also keep in mind the families for whom Christmas will never again be a joyful time.
Source: partly Tharath/Thavisa
On December 26, 2004, my family was also involved in the Khao Lak Tsunami in Thailand. Every year we come back to this place to attend the various commemorations and to reflect on the terrible event of that time.
We will do that again this year, but last week we also went to the cemetery in Ban Bang Maruan. That is probably the place this article is about. Coming from Phuket, this place is a few kilometers before Takuapa. On the right is a small road that leads to the cemetery where approximately 385 unidentified victims are buried.
A wall has been built around the cemetery. The entrance is open, the guardhouse, which probably housed a guard in the past, has been abandoned. The place itself gives an unkempt and desolate impression. It is stated that school children take care of the maintenance. This has not happened in recent years. The flagpoles, where flags have flown at half-mast in the past, are lost. The weeds embrace all the anonymous graves. When looking at all this, I wonder if there are also people here that I have salvaged with respect near Bang Niang. The buildings at the end of the cemetery are also no longer in use and give a neglected impression. Here and there doors are open and you can go inside, where there are still a few pictures of the disaster and the recovery of the victims. The adjacent buildings are also no longer in use, in fact, everything that could be demolished has been removed from the buildings. Some rooms have also served as public toilets in the decay.
I am writing this response because I do not understand how it is possible that the Thais have a lot of respect for the death of their loved ones, the respect for these victims is not or hardly to be found.
Jaap van Loenen
December 25 2016
Well, do you know by heart where the monument to the victims of the flood disaster in 1953 is located? How many visitors does it attract per year?
All those commemorations, silent marches, live broadcasts of the transfer of filled coffins, group discussions and memorial corners in schools, monuments and condolence registers, it is something of the last twenty years.
In that respect, the Thai are just as down-to-earth as the Dutch used to be.
When something happened in Tenerife, it was not discussed at our school, except for the headmaster who, in his Christmas speech at the end of the year, congratulated himself on the fact that he was one of the children of a large family of which only one girl school, but saved her life by not allowing her to miss two days in order to travel with the rest of the family.
I was in Phuket in 2008 and if I hadn't known what happened I never would have known. Apart from the fact that there was a container in the 7-eleven to donate for the next of kin. Which of course I didn't do because I knew very well that those donations were pocketed. No, they don't lift me.
I was sitting on the beach in Jomtien when the first reports came. The strange thing was that I got it through the Netherlands. They asked if I was still alive. It made a remarkable impression on me as I had just had surgery on my (football) knee the day before. I thought that was why they asked me this. Even in the Netherlands, the exact location of this terrible event was not yet known. I hurried home to turn on the TV and hear the commentary. I remember very well that the government and the Thai Meteorological Institute reported quite negatively about it. There would be no, repeat no, casualties in Thailand. How different this was was not revealed until the later days. But when you saw images you suspected otherwise. However, the Thais were left in the dark for a long time. Unfortunately.
A grandson of the recently deceased Thai King also died in that tsunami. He was one half of his eldest daughter's twins.