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A Government spokesman said as at 12 noon today (January 4), the Immigration Department's hotline (2829 3010) had received 877 enquiries and 1 279 requests for assistance.

Meanwhile, there remained 70 cases in which the callers were able to provide the personal particulars of the residents concerned as well as some information about their last known locations. Amongst them, 33 were reported to be in Thailand, 10 in Indonesia, two in Malaysia, and 25 in other places. There were no reported cases involving Hong Kong residents in Sri Lanka and Maldives.

In addition, there also remained 549 Hong Kong residents whose family members have not provided the personal particulars or specific information on the last known locations of these residents. The Immigration Department is liaising with the caller in each of these cases to gather the required information for immediate follow-up actions.

As regards casualties involving Hong Kong residents, the death tolls remained at eight. Five people including two men, two women and a girl are still hospitalized in Thailand. Meanwhile, the authorities are trying to verify a newspaper report today claiming that three more Hong Kong residents had lost their lives in the tsunamis.

Employers and school heads are reminded to report to the Immigration Department hotline (2829 3010) if their employees or students failed to turn up to work or classes.

From calls made by employers, eight employees were reported to have lost contact with their employers after the Christmas and New Year holidays. Of them, three were later confirmed safe and the facts in the remaining cases were being verified for follow-up actions as soon as possible.

On the multi-disciplinary support team from the HKSAR Government, the spokesman noted that in view of a decreased demand for services required of the support team, the deployment of Hong Kong's support team in Thailand would be adjusted accordingly, although all essential services would continue.

Starting from tomorrow, the help desks set up in Phuket and Bangkok International Airport would operate at busy hours only. The multi-disciplinary support team will maintain its presence in hospitals where Hong Kong residents are staying. They will leave appropriate methods of contact with other hospitals for those in need to establish contacts with the Hong Kong support team.

Meanwhile, the three telephone hotlines are still operating round the clock to provide assistance to Hong Kong residents. They are: 096471215 and 096471208 (for calling from Thailand) or Hong Kong number (852) 9038 6578.

Local Hong Kong residents are urged to call the Immigration Department's hotline at 2829 3010, if necessary.

On the DNA database set up by the Thai authorities to help verify the identity of victims in the disaster, the spokesman said that Hong Kong Police continued to contact relatives of unlocated Hong Kong people for the collection of DNA samples.

As part of the procedure, oral swap and hair samples will be taken at Central Police Station at Arsenal Street, Wan Chai.

The Disaster Relief Fund (DRF) Advisory Committee under the chairmanship of the Chief secretary for Administration today approved an allocation of $3.5 million to the Red cross to arrange for relief supplies and assistance to the needy in Sri Lanka.

This has brought the total amount of allocation to $17.5 million. Previous approval for allocations have been made to World Vision and Oxfam.

Further to the first consignment of relief supplies forwarded to Thailand on January 1, dialogues with other countries are continuing with a view to providing relief assistance to the needed.

A dedicated web page containing information on the tsunamis can be accessed through a hyperlink at the Government's homepage (www.info.gov.hk) or the Immigration Department's homepage (www.immd.gov.hk). The total page view up to January 3 stood at 902 075.

The web page provides, with the consent of families concerned, information on the personal particulars of Hong Kong residents reported to have lost contact with their families.

The spokesman also advised the public to beware of suspected fraud e-mails soliciting donations to help South Asian people affected by the tsunamis. Reports on such mails can be made to the Police at 2860 5012.

Ends/Tuesday, January 4, 2005

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