ECONOMYNEXT – A hospital in Sri Lanka’s southern town of Galle went to great lengths to identify and deliver over 1,200 bodies that suddenly came to the hospital during the tsunami, but to this day about 300 remain un-identified, a media report quoting a judicial medical officer said.
Galle town was one of the hardest hit locations in the country, where the main town square went under water.
Other badly hit towns include Hambantota, and the island’s East which took the full force of the waves, but some of the areas were then under the control of Tamil Tiger separatists.
Among the dead bodies that flooded the Karapitiya hospital in Galle were 40 children, where both parents had also died, Chief Judicial Medical Officer Rohan Ruwanpura was quoted a saying in Sri Lanka’s Divaina newspaper.
About 200 of the bodies were identified by relatives on the same day.
The hospital did not have the resources to conduct post-mortems on all the bodies and also had no mortuary facilities. Usually ice and sawdust could be used, but the ice factories were also destroyed, according to Ruwanpura.
With limited chemicals available for embalming, a light embalm was performed to preserve the bodies for about two days.
After the first day, about 550 other bodies were identified by relatives.
About 450 bodies could not be identified. They were buried in a mass grave after getting a magistrates order. Before that the remains were photographed.
“Any ornaments they were wearing, any possession they had and tattoos or marks were photographed,” Ruwanpura told the Divaina.
In the days after the tsunami about another 100 bodies had been found. (Colombo/Dec26/2024)
The hospital had also preserved DNA samples of many of the victims.
About 100 persons were identified later. The samples were kept at the hospital for 10 years. But were destroyed as they had deteriorated. (Colombo/Dec26/2024)
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