One of the very worst places in the world

THAILAND: A serene Buddhist temple near Khao Lak beach, where thousands lost their lives in the tsunamis which hit southern …

THAILAND: A serene Buddhist temple near Khao Lak beach, where thousands lost their lives in the tsunamis which hit southern Thailand, has been turned into the largest mortuary and forensic unit in the country, writes Clifford Coonan

The graceful figures on the roof of Wat Yanyao, a Buddhist temple in Pang-Nga district, now look down on to scenes of horror. It's one of the very worst places in the world.

As I don a set of white overalls, gloves, a surgical mask and a pair of Wellingtons, one of the volunteers jokes. "You just have to do what you can to stay cheerful," says Lek, a volunteer from Bangkok who just graduated from the University of Boston, as she hands me the protective gear.

Fully clad in a white protective suit, it's on through an arch into a scene out of a nightmarish mediaeval triptych, with bodies laid out in several sections of the temple grounds. In a strange way, the volunteer was right - it is a bit like walking on the moon.

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This is the temple's recreation area, which has been given over to dead bodies. The smell of death is very strong and I have to take slow, measured steps to fight the mounting nausea as I pass small groups of bodies lying on sheets in the damp, balmy evening in the temple grounds.

Most of the dead have been in the water for a long time. Despite the horrific sights, at such close quarters you cannot fail to be moved by the inherent dignity of the corpses as they lie there.

At one end of the temple complex, volunteers and soldiers are building a sort of igloo using dry ice - the sheer numbers of dead means ingenuity is called for.

There is a carpet of ice vapour inside the low wall of the igloo and the bodies are stacked inside. As the vapour undulates, you can see the outline of a human body, the overall effect is ghostly, eerie.

What was the recreation area is now the preserve of gas-masked forensic experts, who take photographs and take samples of DNA, fingerprints and dental records for identification.

Photographs are rarely used for identification purposes anymore as the bodies were unrecognisable after days in the sea. Eager for some sort of closure after a harrowing few days, there were fights among relatives to claim corpses.

At the corner of the temple building, near a go-kart track, the forensic experts are helped by Buddhist monks in saffron robes, some of them wearing face masks. They look on as the forensic experts unwrap more bodies to take more DNA samples. The bodies are then brought off to be stored in plastic containers before being refrigerated.

There was a group of Buddhist monks out on Phi-Phi Island as well when I went there last week.

The monks have been busy since this disaster, moving around the stricken sites blessing the dead and helping with burials. They help with the task in hand and shoo away the watching dogs.

Hundreds of corpses have been arriving here since the tsunamis struck. This is where the dead from Khao Lak beach, Ban Nam Khem and other sites are being brought. They account for a big portion of more than 4,000 bodies discovered so far in the Phangnga province on the southern Thai mainland, most of them from Khao Lak. Nearly 1,000 are still missing.

After my protective clothing is cut off me by volunteers, I pass through a checkpoint where I am are sprayed with disinfectant, a smell that lingers in my nostrils for hours afterwards.

Back into the first section of the temple, teams of soldiers unload trucks filled with bodies, medicine and dry ice. French, British, German and Swedish forensic teams walk through the courtyard, where there are refrigerated containers stacked up and plastic and wooden coffins.

Groups of volunteers go from group to group of visitors, trying to keep spirits up. Relatives of the missing sit around the courtyard, trying to come to terms with their ordeal. They carry pieces of paper to help them with the identification process and they look lost.

Presuming we are relatives, a British volunteer called Kelly asks us if we are all right for a place to stay that night. She has a cheerful tone, as do many of the volunteers, who are trying to do what they can to help the relatives of the missing.

Pavilions in the temple have been turned into forensic labs and computer rooms. Bodies are piled up in the area around the monks' quarters.

Putting names to the bodies has been made somewhat easier by digital video identification (DVI), a system devised by Interpol which in a rigorous way gathers samples and information from relatives and then cross-checks them before filing them in a database. The bereaved will then be notified and the body repatriated.

DVI experts stand around in groups, smoking, chatting and comparing notes. Altogether, forensic teams from 19 countries are working with relatives to identify the bodies by taking hair samples or fingernails and comparing them to samples from corpses.

It's a relatively simple process and reliable, though it can take a while - up to three months in some cases, the experts reckon. Thai officials hope this will stop the stream of relatives coming out and complicating the identification process.

For some, the process may not have an end. The big fear is that many of the people who died at Khao Lak were swept away, leaving no body to identify.