Bangkok - A Nepalese man has identified his father's remains in Thailand 10 years after he died during the Indian Ocean tsunami, officials said on Friday.
Police officials in Thailand's Phang Nga Province confirmed that the Nepalese man had travelled to the area and exhumed his father's body.
The man was only nine years old when his father disappeared during the tragic event which claimed more than 5 000 lives in Thailand.
The now 19-year-old had reached out to local authorities and provided a DNA sample which was matched to his father's.
“There are still 382 unidentified bodies at this cemetery,” said Tanapol Songput, head of the disaster team at the Mirror Foundation which deals with identifying and reuniting the body of disaster victims to their loved ones.
“In the last 10 years, 48 bodies have been exhumed and returned to their families.”
On December 26, it will be exactly a decade since the tsunami that killed about 230 000 people in over a dozen countries around the Indian Ocean. - Sapa-dpa