NEWS: Process of identifying Tsunami victims, page 1

To assist in the difficult task of identifying tsunami victims brought mostly from Phi Phi island, a Canadian team of forensics specialists including Dr. James Young, Ontario's commissioner of emergency management, pathologist Dr. Michael Pollanen and a team of 12 RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) are in Krabi, Thailand working side by side with forensic specialists from Portugal, Italy, Switzerland, Japan and Israel. Conditions are not ideal, but according to Dr. Young "Shangri-La" compared to what they had just days ago when hundreds of bodies lay in sun uncovered. Now they are working out of a temple-turned-morgue and the bodies (630, as of today) are in refrigerated trucks.

www.thestar.com
KRABI�Fans of crime scene shows would recognize the fingerprint brush and black detection powder the RCMP officers were using yesterday on tsunami victims.

That's where the similarity to television ends...

...Fingerprinting is one stop on a circuit that begins when a body is taken from the refrigerated container and given a number. It doesn't end until DNA has been gathered and every bit of physical evidence, from tattoos to scars, has been recorded.

Once numbered, the body goes to a table where two RCMP officers clean and prepare the mouth for a dentist who'll take X-rays, create a dental chart and extract a tooth. Teeth retain DNA longer than hair or bone, forensic experts here says.

The tooth goes into a numbered plastic bag, which is placed in a green plastic laundry basket, on top of bagged teeth taken from other bodies.

Reports are filed in a laundry basket to the left. Personal items such as jewellery go into a cardboard box on the right

Please visit the link provided for the complete story.

Although not very pleasant, it is an interesting and important process in the quest to identify worldwide victims of this terrible tragedy.

Related News Links:
www.recorder.ca

[edit on 7-1-2005 by Banshee]