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Sixteen police officers and one immigration officer of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government Support Team were deployed from Phuket to Bangkok today (Thailand time January 2) with a view to locating the whereabouts of Hong Kong residents reported to have lost contact with their families.

"Acting on information that some of those injured in Phuket may have been transferred to hospitals in Bangkok for treatment, the team sent to Bangkok visited nine hospitals but no Hong Kong residents were located so far," said Ms Linda So, the coordinator of the Support Team.

Meanwhile, multi-disciplinary teams comprising members of the Police, the Immigration Department as well as medical experts continued to pay visits to hospitals in Phuket and Khao Lak.

The Police visited 10 hotels in the Patong beach area to find any trace of Hong Kong residents, including checking through any record of admission of Hong Kong families. The team would follow up any relevant information so gathered.

The latest number of Hong Kong residents reported to have lost contact with their families stands at 41 in Thailand, as compared to 74 yesterday.

Two more Hong Kong residents were confirmed to have deceased today, thus making the number of fatality to six in total. A Hong Kong girl remained in critical condition in a hospital in Phuket, while another Hong Kong resident was found hospitalised in Phuket today. The latter left Thailand in the evening. One Hong Kong patient in a Bangkok hospital was transferred back to Hong Kong today.

In cases where the families concerned could provide more specific information, the team would assist by visiting the last know destinations and providing counseling services if required. Over 100 articles which might belong to Hong Kong residents, including five Hong Kong identity cards were retrieved in yesterday's operation in a resort in Khao Lak.

To complement efforts of the Thai authorities to extract DNA samples of the deceased to set up a DNA database, the Government earlier announced in Hong Kong that the Police would contact relevant families to take DNA samples of blood relatives to facilitate matching with information in the database to be set up by the Thai authorities.

"Those family members currently in Thailand may approach the command centre of the Support Team in Phuket for assistance if they would like to submit their DNA sample to the Thai authorities for matching. Experts in the Support Team helped to take samples of five persons from three families today," Ms So added.

To enhance publicity of the team's presence to help Hong Kong residents, the team would continue to post notices at hotels and hospitals to publicise the hotlines and to appeal to Hong Kong residents to come forward for assistance.

Ends/Sunday, January 2, 2005

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