69 Canadians Missing

69 Canadians missing across the disaster area

CTV.ca News Staff

There are conflicting reports on the number of Canadians killed in
Thailand, with Ottawa confirming there were two Canadians killed, while
Thai authorities say 13 have died.

On Wednesday, Foreign Affairs spokesman Reynald Doiron told CTV.ca
there may be more Canadian casualties, but they haven't been positively
identified through conclusive, forensic means.

A Gatineau, Que. man is among the three officially confirmed dead.
Gilles Bouchard, 57, was killed while walking on a beach with his wife
north of Phuket, Thailand.

Bouchard had retired from teaching and was preparing to move to
Hawkesbury. Bouchard and his wife were vacationing with their daughter,
who's working as a teacher in Singapore.

There are still 69 Canadians reported missing across the disaster area
in Asia.

However, a list released Wednesday by the Thai Interior Ministry's
Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation says 13 Canadians were
among the 435 foreigners killed.

Doiron confirmed that a third Canadian had died in Sri Lanka. There are
also five Canadians missing in Indonesia, 15 in Sri Lanka and 11 in the
Maldives.

Doiron said the Canadians in the Maldives had registered with local
authorities, but "we simply cannot get through to the island."

He added that consular officials from another country had charted a
helicopter and were expected to report back to their Canadian
colleagues very soon.

A total of 34 nationalities appeared on the Thai list of foreigners
killed after a deadly tsunami slammed into south Asia on Sunday,
including 20 Americans.

One of the hardest hit nations was Sweden, with 54 victims, followed by
Germany with 49 and Britain with 43. Another 84 are identified only as
Caucasian.

The death toll is expected to rise among foreigners and residents of
the countries hit by the massive tidal wave.

Survivors' stories

Meanwhile, three days after the tsunami hit, Canadian survivors are
sharing their stories of survival while trying to come to terms with
the massive devastation they saw.

Kevin Frey was eating breakfast on Thailand's Phi Phi Island with his
girlfriend Katarina Puzic when they saw a couple of boats crawl over
the shoreline.

"It wasn't exactly a wall of water," says Frey. "There was no big wave.
That's one of the reasons the locals weren't so scared. It slowly came
in at a couple of metres a second," he said on CTV's Canada AM.

Frey said the locals got worried when the boats started smashing into
the hotel. "They started running for the mountains. So, we just forgot
about breakfast and headed for the mountains."

Frey's brother David was also in Thailand when the tsunami hit. He was
in his hotel room which had filled up with water. "They went up to the
ceiling with water," Kevin said. David managed to escape when the hotel
door caved in.

"I started to count to three, but only counted to one before we went
into the water underneath and swam," David Frey said, speaking to
Canada AM from a taxi cab en route to the airport. "We got out and saw
light...The whole thing took probably five, ten minutes but it felt
like a lifetime."

David found Kevin by chance as they were running up the mountain. "The
first 20 minutes after we ran up the hill we found them. So we were
very lucky," said Kevin.

Despite a harrowing ordeal, Katarina has already decided she'd go back
to Thailand because the people were so hospitable. "They were so kind
to all of us," she said.

The couple said the night of the tsunami, they were in the jungle. "As
we were coming down the mountain, these poor villagers, their lives
over, tourism's over, no house, no money, and they're saying sorry to
us like they felt bad for us."

The villagers also brought stranded tourists water and food. "We would
say, 'No, no, keep it for you,'" Kevin recalls. "They would leave it
and walk away. They wouldn't let us not have food."

Canadian Warren Lavender was scuba diving about a kilometre away off
the shore of Sri Lanka when the first wave hit.

"All of a sudden the current became unbelievable," he told a friend in
an e-mail. "Everyone held on to coral or whatever they could to prevent
themselves from being swept away."

Lavender said once he had resurfaced, he realized "the beach had simply
disappeared. We could see the hotels in shambles (some of them
collapsing) and tons of debris in the water."

After running down the main street wearing his scuba equipment, Warren
said he understood the gravity of the situation when he was passed by
police officers running from the next wave.

"Thanks to the kindness of some of the local Sri Lankan people, we were
given refuge in a three storey building. We were some of the lucky
ones."

But not everyone was so lucky. Buddhimathie Jayasekera lost her parents
who lived close to the ocean in Sri Lanka. "I talked to my brother and
he said the water level was five feet. He was one mile away from where
my parents used to live."

She says she's comforted by the fact she visited with her parents
recently and was able to introduce them to their grandson. They also
told her how proud they were of her for earning her PhD in chemistry.
"They said, 'We are really happy now so don't worry about us. Be strong
and brave.'"

Anyone who has missing Canadian relatives in the affected areas can
contact the Department of Foreign Affairs Emergency Operations Centre
at 613-944-2471 or 1 800 606-5499.

They're also asking for people who have contacted family members to
call the same number, to let them know, so they can check those names
off the list.

There is a simple online database to be used by travellers in affected
areas and family members and/or friends at home. The intent is to
provide a simple and efficient method by which people can confirm that
their friends and family members are safe.
The web site can be found at http://tsunami.globalcondor.net.