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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. |
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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. |
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