Immediate Response: Description and Assessment

The emergency response following the disaster naturally focused on the provision of basic shelter, food, and medical assistance to affected people, and search and rescue missions for survivors stranded on remote beaches and small islands. It was the neighbouring communities who first rushed to the assistance of the tsunami victims.³ These community actions were followed by government initiatives and international assistance. The Tsunami Victim Relief Center was established on 26 December 2004 to coordinate mobilizing relief efforts from all sectors of the society. The Center provided an international and domestic call centre to provide information to relatives of both Thai and foreign disaster victims. It also acted as a 24-hour donation centre for both cash and essential supplies, which were transported by container trucks to the six provinces. Other donation centres were also established by government and non-government agencies.

The relief efforts focused on areas along Patong and Kamala beaches in Phuket, Khao Lak, Phi Phi Island, and Ban Nam Kem—the areas that were hardest hit. Some 30,293 people, comprising military personnel, policemen, volunteers, and 36 helicopters and six vessels from the Royal Navy, participated in the emergency relief activities. Rescue teams with search equipment came from a variety of places, including France; Germany; Hong Kong, China; Japan; Singapore; the Republic of Korea; Taipei,China; Italy, and the US. Local roads were repaired almost immediately to allow delivery of aid to the disaster areas. Telephone communications and electricity distributing systems in Phuket, Phang Nga, and Krabi were quickly restored and were back to normal within a few days. This immediate restoration of logistic infrastructure helped to improve the speed and coordination of aid delivery.

Distribution of aid and supplies donated by domestic and international sources was done through the Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation (DDPM). Supplies sent to Phuket airport were delivered by the army. Local administrations were responsible for cleaning up debris along the beaches to give confidence to tourists concerned about their safety.

The search for bodies and human remains was also undertaken immediately. Searches were carried out to locate bodies buried under damaged buildings, in the sea, and in the mangrove forest areas. An extensive process of to identify human remains using DNA techniques was undertaken to deal with the large number of unidentified bodies. The identification process was supported by volunteers and NGOs, who worked tirelessly in a corpse-clearing centre established at the temple of Wat Yanyao in Phang Nga. By October 2005, the forensic teams had been able to identify 4,148 bodies, while 1,247 bodies still remained unidentified.⁴

The next priority was to set up a centre to take care of over 34,000 tourists, including both Thai and forty foreign nationalities, and to help them return home. (Some tourists were provided with airfares to return home.)

The United Nations warned that the secondary impacts of the disaster could be deadlier than the first: people faced health risks due to contamination of drinking water and devastation of health care infrastructure. Close monitoring by the Ministry of Health helped to contain infectious diseases, while a mental health care program was successful in preventing suicides of survivors who were traumatized by the tsunami experience.

The scale of the disaster in Thailand was relatively small compared to other tsunami-affected countries such as Indonesia and Sri Lanka, but Thailand nevertheless faced complex logistical tasks in the immediate aftermath of the tsunami, and coped relatively successfully with these challenges. Thailand’s success in the immediate relief effort has been attributed to a number of factors such as (1) the synergy generated by the Thai community in the provision of many forms of assistance, (2) the close collaboration and cooperation among civil, military, and police authorities, NGOs, charitable foundations, and civil volunteers, and (3) the influx of support and humanitarian assistance from international communities and NGOs (World Conference on Disaster Reduction (WCDR) Thailand Country Report (2006)).

The challenge following the successful delivery of immediate relief was to implement rehabilitation and reconstruction activities to help the tsunami survivors to cope with immediate economic problems and move on to rebuild shattered livelihoods.

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