Survivors angry at slow pace of rescue operation

Thailand: Stefan Johansson, a 41-year-old air force officer from Sweden, is hoping that tonight is the night

Thailand: Stefan Johansson, a 41-year-old air force officer from Sweden, is hoping that tonight is the night. He is not concerned about aftershocks hitting the beach half a mile from here, or about the haphazard rescue operation finally under way in southern Thailand.

Nor is he worried by the deaths of several hundred compatriots. Mr Johansson is anxious that the bar girl he has his eye on is going to keep holding out on him.

Mr Johansson is not alone. Four days after the tidal wave hit, normal life has returned to much of Phuket and surrounding resorts such as Patong.

The "girlie" bars are reopening, the bazaars selling rip-off Rolex watches are busy, the tourists are streaming off flights and on to the beach. Here Thai Prime Minister Mr Thaksin Shinawatra's request for the country to wear black and forgo New Year festivities seems likely to fall on deaf ears.

READ MORE

At Phuket's airport, Pornthip Sucharitcharan was preparing to welcome 200 new arrivals on behalf of the Phuket Hilton. Today another 200 guests will fly in to stay at the hotel.

The only problem, as far as Mr Sucharitcharan was concerned, were delays caused to commercial passenger flights by the unprecedented number of aircraft landing at the airport. The congestion is due to aid flights coming in and planes bearing the dead, injured and badly shaken out.

The search, rescue and humanitarian relief operation in southern Thailand has finally moved beyond the immediate vicinity of the largest tourist centres.

The Thai military yesterday started using heavy earth-moving equipment at Khao Lak, 60 miles north of Phuket, on a series of ruined resort hotels where large numbers of victims are believed to be under the rubble.

Survivors have criticised the slow pace of the rescue operation. Ricardo Cavallo's young daughter was torn from his wife's arms as the couple ran from the wave.

Mr Cavallo, from Portugal, has spent the last three days searching for her body in the rubble of a resort at Khao Lak. "For the first two days it was just me and some staff from our hotel with our bare hands. The authorities were nowhere to be seen," he said.

Col Arun Khaewwathi, heading the rescue effort in Takua Pa province to the north of Phuket, said that work was being hampered by a shortage of equipment, heat and the fear of aftershocks.

German, Swedish and Taiwanese specialist teams have now arrived. However, the death toll in Thailand continues to rise - to 1,657, with at least 1,500 missing. The dead include 473 foreigners.

But no one knows the true number of dead. Thousands of locals are thought to have been killed when their flimsy bamboo homes were destroyed.

Many remote fishing villages are yet to be reached, though reports indicate severe damage. There is also little hard information on the effect of the tidal wave on islands to the south of Phuket.

Guardian Service