Thousands of people from all over the world lost their lives in the tsunami on 26th December 2004. The task facing the Disaster Victim Identification (DVI) teams in Thailand is the rapid, dignified and accurate identification of victims so that they can be returned to their loved ones.

   This co-ordinated effort by the Thai and international community is aimed at significantly speeding up the victim recovery and identification process, enabling victims' families to begin the healing process and societies to rebuild.

   However, the scale of this disaster means that the Thai authorities, supported by Disaster Victim Identification teams from more than 30 countries, face a lengthy process in retrieving, analysing and matching data in order to achieve this.

   The process involves gathering Post Mortem and Ante Mortem data, forensics, fingerprints and dental information.

   The Thai Tsunami Victim Identification Information Management Centre (TTVI-IMC) was established immediately following the tsunami.

   The TTVI-IMC is the Information Management Centre where all data collected on victims is collated and work is undertaken to match the data in order to identify victims and successfully repatriate them to their loved ones.

   To date (as of Friday May 7) 3,700 bodies have been recovered in Thailand . More than 1,400 victims have now been identified and have been repatriated to 36 different countries from across the world.

   Unfortunately due to the massive amount of data that enters the TTVI-IMC and despite stringent quality control measures in place to limit human errors, they can never be completely eliminated. We can confirm that an error in the documentation process has led to an incident of the wrong body being released.

   The case involves two victims and the families of both have been informed. On the request of the families, we are not at liberty to discuss the details of these cases.

   Both victims have been positively identified and those identifications confirmed by the Identification Board at the TTVI-IMC. However an error in the inputting of information led to another victim's body being released.

   Appropriate action has been taken by the TTVI to address this and the remains of both victims have now been released to the correct families.

   The TTVI-IMC deeply regrets any distress caused by this error and recognises that it is essential accurate identifications are made in these challenging circumstances. Quality assurance and verification of samples, documentation, identifications and release of bodies is constantly carried out by the IMC and it is these processes that have highlighted the error in this case.

   In addition, following this extremely sad case further quality control measures have now been instigated before the release of a body in an effort to further reduce the risk of any similar incident re-occurring.

Please note:
   On the request of the families involved, and to protect their identities, the TTVI-IMC will not be offering interviews on this matter and there is no opportunity for questions.