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Last Update: Thursday, December 30, 2004. 5:48am (AEDT)
Rescuers dig for tsunami survivors in Thailand
Thai and German rescue workers were digging through the wreckage of a half-completed hotel late on Wednesday after villagers said they heard calls for help from people trapped inside.
If true, this would be the first case of someone found alive nearly four days after Thailand’s Andaman Sea playground was smashed by giant killer waves triggered by the worst earthquake in 40 years.
Rescue workers, aided by sniffer dogs and listening equipment, had not confirmed that people were trapped under the wreckage of the Bamboo Orchid Resort Hotel on Khao Lak beach, where officials say up to 3,000 people, many of them foreign tourists, may have died.
The head of the German rescue team told ITV television there was only a 20 per cent chance of finding someone alive.
He added it may take five hours to finish the search.
ITV broadcast live pictures of rescuers in orange overalls and safety helmets crowded around the site as a digging machine cleared debris.
Rescuers said they were responding to reports from villagers who said they heard cries for help.
About 100 workers were on the site when the waves struck on Sunday.
“I believe the people inside might be those who took refuge from the rushing waves, but the place just collapsed while they were inside,” the hotel’s architect told ITV.
More than 1,800 bodies have been recovered from Khao Lak beach and its luxury hotels popular with western and Asian tourists, especially Scandinavians and Germans escaping the long, dark winter back home.
abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200412/s1273821.htm
Rescuers dig for tsunami survivors in Thailand
Thai and German rescue workers were digging through the wreckage of a half-completed hotel late on Wednesday after villagers said they heard calls for help from people trapped inside.
If true, this would be the first case of someone found alive nearly four days after Thailand’s Andaman Sea playground was smashed by giant killer waves triggered by the worst earthquake in 40 years.
Rescue workers, aided by sniffer dogs and listening equipment, had not confirmed that people were trapped under the wreckage of the Bamboo Orchid Resort Hotel on Khao Lak beach, where officials say up to 3,000 people, many of them foreign tourists, may have died.
The head of the German rescue team told ITV television there was only a 20 per cent chance of finding someone alive.
He added it may take five hours to finish the search.
ITV broadcast live pictures of rescuers in orange overalls and safety helmets crowded around the site as a digging machine cleared debris.
Rescuers said they were responding to reports from villagers who said they heard cries for help.
About 100 workers were on the site when the waves struck on Sunday.
“I believe the people inside might be those who took refuge from the rushing waves, but the place just collapsed while they were inside,” the hotel’s architect told ITV.
More than 1,800 bodies have been recovered from Khao Lak beach and its luxury hotels popular with western and Asian tourists, especially Scandinavians and Germans escaping the long, dark winter back home.
abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200412/s1273821.htm
