All language subtitles for after the wave (2014) en

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Reporter: A huge earthquake
followed by tidal waves

in the Indian Ocean

has caused devastation
from Indonesia to Thailand

and as far west
as Sri Lanka and India.

Before, I thought
I understood --

the world
operated in a certain way;

I used to know
when I was taking risks.

But when something so terrible
came along without any warning,

the rules have changed.

It was a lottery --

some people won
and some people didn't.

It taught me
the most important lesson --

that nature's in charge.

We had brought my son
to the other side of the world.

Dead or alive,
we couldn't leave him there.

When we're born,
we're given a name,

and we carry
that our entire lives.

It becomes a central piece
of who we are,

and when that is
stripped from us,

it is so
fundamentally dehumanizing

that all cultures

seem to agree we need
to bring that identity back.

Reporter: For many tourists in
southern Thailand,

this wasa paradise.

Not anymore.

The death toll is now rising

as the terrible picture
of damage emerges.

Reporter: The Department of
Foreign Affairs says

800 Australians believed
to have been in Phuket,

in Thailand, have yet
to be accounted for.

On the 27th of December,

at about 1800 hours
or thereabouts,

I received a phone call
from headquarters

advising that there had been
a major incident in Thailand.

I contacted the AFP in Canberra,

and I said, look,
it's my gut feeling

that we're going to become
heavily involved in this.

We had a fully equipped team

ready to depart within 24 hours.

It constituted
police forensic specialists,

forensic dentists,
fingerprint experts,

and all the equipment

that they would require
to set up a mortuary,

the postmortem work
in the field.

At that stage, it was believed

there were 300 deceased persons
on a beach in Phuket.

Suddenly, I realize
there is no noise anymore.

There is no birds, no dogs.

I realized something was wrong.

Took my daughter,

take my wife and run away
without seeing anything.

We'd probably been kayaking

for around 10 or 15 minutes
at that point.

We hired two kayaks, one for
Matt, my boyfriend, and me,

and then my mum and Alice
where in the other kayak.

No one else around, calm,

I couldn't believe
how beautiful it was.

Took a photo of
my mum and sister.

As I started to lower my camera,

something just felt different.

It was a ridge of white.

And it was moving.

Um...

And it just looked so wrong.

Didn't know what to do,
just a...

a moment of absolute stunned
silence and disbelief.

None of us screamed,
none of us cried.

It hit us.

I grabbed my daughter.

She was only six months.

And I run away from it.

And I run...

I don't know, not much -- like,
100 meters, not much.

And suddenly I feel like
I have got something in my back,

something huge.

And I turn and I see, like,

this wall, black wall,
five meters high.

uh, it was the --
it was the wave.

The current became
really strong.

After one second,
I lost my daughter.

She knows she was going.

I couldn't see her eyes.

We see each other,

and I saw she was scared because
she realize something was wrong

because I didn't
hold her anymore,

and she was in the water,
and we see --

and that's
the last time I saw her.

Suddenly, I heard my wife
screaming,

"Where is she?!
Where is she?!"

because she saw I lost her,

so I just grabbed her
and she was screaming.

I think when she realized she --
we lost our baby,

she decided to die
at this moment,

because I try to hold her
and I put her on the trees,

but she didn't hold the trees,
she was like...

she want to leave it.

And after a while,
I lost her hand.

I don't know how long
I was underwater for there.

I had absolutely
no control of my body.

My head kept hitting the rock.

My body was being thrown
around, spinning and spinning

and spinning
and spinning like a rag doll.

I kept saying to myself,

"You're not going
to die like this."

I got quite angry.

I was saying
inside my head,

"There is absolutely no way
you're going to die here.

This is not going to happen."

After a while, the water started
to settle a bit around me

and went quiet still then.

And I immediately
put my arms up

to swim up to the surface.

When I emerged, I saw my mum
and Alice and Matt

all there together
in a line in front of me.

They didn't look well.

They looked haunted.

I couldn't...
couldn't quite believe it,

but there was another wave
really, really close,

really close,
coming really, really fast.

I was pushed under water again.

This time when the water calmed,

I came up to the surface
and nobody was there.

I swam around trying to find
my family, trying to find Matt.

My gaze fell on a body.

I instantly knew it was my mum.

I breathed into her mouth

and could just hear gurgling.

Absolutely no response.

As I was holding her,

I was aware of something else
in the water --

again, the same
kind of feeling --

and looked out,

and there was another wave
coming towards us,

and it was...

one of the hardest moments
in my life.

I couldn't get mum out,
but I had to just leave her.

Within the region,
Australia had developed

something of a reputation around
disaster victim identification,

largely that had evolved
from deployments

to the Bali bombings in 2002.

Northam: General Nopadol
was the go-to man,

and he was the decision maker.

He had the ear of government

and that was really
important for us.

He advised us that
the biggest scale of the problem

was actually not in Phuket
at all,

was actually to the north
and losses were far greater.

And that that's where he would
like the Australian team

to deploy to.

As you're coming into
Khao Lak from the south,

you come in through
some mountainous countryside

that's very close to the sea.

There's, like, a bend
in the road

that goes down into Khao Lak.

And so you can see the whole
of that district.

And, um...

Just, um...

Yeah, just unbelievable.

Oh!

I will never forget that first
24 hours in Thailand.

We could see fairly clearly
that we were no longer talking

about a disaster
involving hundreds of deceased,

that in fact that number was now

going to definitely be
in the thousands.

And the extent of the disaster
wasn't one single location,

but was rather affecting

hundreds of kilometers
of coastline.

It's one thing to see
on the news

a figure that says so many
thousands have been killed.

To appreciate
that of those thousand,

you have to try and look
at every individual one

and try and give them a name.

This is an absolutely
surreal environment

on a scale
that we'd never imagined.

There had been no international

disaster victim
identification operation

ever mounted on the scale

that we were witnessing
in Thailand.

What would be our approach,

how would we absolutely deal
with this

in any sort of sensible fashion?

And actually questioning

whether we could do it
or not at all.

Shonti and Stu and I
got up very early,

about daylight,

and went down to the dive shop

and took a boat out
to Koh Bon Island.

My sister decided she wanted
to hang out with my brother

instead of going out with us.

They were going to
go swimming and play

and just hang out at the beach.

We jumped in the water
and immediately

knew something was up.

It was just --
there was no fish.

The water was just
full of bubbles.

No fish.

I don't know where they were,
they were hiding.

And while we were eating lunch,
the live-aboard,

which is a big boat,

went up in the air and paused

and then it went down.

And everybody on the boat went,
"Whoa, what is that?"

And then the dive master said,
"Everybody,

get on the speed boat,
we're going back to shore."

About a mile
from the Thailand coast,

we started to see these trails
of debris in the water.

First it was boards,

and then there were palm trees
and mattresses,

all this stuff that --
and we didn't know what --

Pulled in a few people
who had been killed

and then a few people
who were injured,

and the captain took
as many people as he could,

but he had to stop because
the boat wasn't big enough

to be carrying too many people.

We went in to shore from there,
and the dive master said,

when you get to shore,

jump off the boat and run
as fast as you can,

as far as you can,
as high as you can,

because we don't know
if another wave is coming.

I've never been that scared
in my entire life.

I remember having to pee
and I didn't even dare stop.

I just peed while I was running.

And you were
stepping over bodies

and you're stepping over debris
and people's belongings,

and it looked like a bomb
had gone off

and just leveled
everything on the beach.

Sally: I was thinking
the kids were okay

because this wasn't
the beach they were on.

And I just assumed
they would be okay.

The further north we went,

the larger the numbers
of deceased that we witnessed.

The bodies had been recovered

and were then being taken
to "wats," or temples.

Travers: You'd see bodies arrive
in the back of utes,

you'd see bodies arrive
in dump trucks,

you'd see bodies
arrive in garbage trucks --

every time you turned around,

you might start to clear
or move five bodies,

five or 10 more would arrive.

The Thais believe that
the spirits of the deceased

needed to rest in a holy place,

which was the temples or wats,
where the bodies had been taken.

Families began to arrive
very early on

in search of looking for
their loved ones at the temples.

I was their link
into the forensic operation,

their link into the Thais,

and they were just
hungry for information,

and it was really challenging
because all they wanted

was to bring home
the body of their loved ones.

And it wasn't going to be quick.

And we'd spoken to Christian
and Moi on Christmas Day.

You know, the whole
calling everybody,

they called and they're having
a wonderful time in Thailand.

So he rang on Christmas Day,

thanked me for the presents,
and he said,

"By the way, you're going to
become a grandfather."

And I thought,
"Oh! Dear, oh, dear!"

And I...
I thought later

I probably should have sounded
more excited than I did,

but I'll make that up for
the next time I speak with him.

Was such a wonderful moment

and hearing that they'd found
this incredible, beautiful place

and were having
such a wonderful time.

Reporter: It's a terrible
and developing story

from Southeast Asia tonight
where a massive earthquake...

Reporter: Hundreds of
Australians missing

in the tsunami-hit areas
of Southeast Asia.

Reporter: ABC's Peter Lloyd

now reports from
the resort town of Phuket,

which bore the brunt
of the tsunami.

I think it was the morning
of the 27th

that we saw something
on the news

that there were -- something
had happened in Phuket.

We didn't even take much notice
of it because we thought,

"Oh, they're not in Phuket.

They're somewhere out there
in Khao Lak

and that's somewhere
further north."

Richard: And I saw it on
the front page of the paper

that there'd been
this massive tsunami.

So I rang my daughter and said,

"Look, I'm not familiar
with this part of Thailand.

Is this where Christian
was staying?"

And she said,
"No, don't worry.

I think he was around
in the bay behind."

The tsunami toll
is now reaching levels

no heart or mind
can truly comprehend.

Many of the worst affected areas
still haven't been contacted

or assessed.

Because we couldn't
get hold of them,

you know, we started to become
increasingly worried.

And then all their friends
and all the families

started to call us and call
them, and nobody knew.

We said, "We have to go to
Thailand, someone's got to go."

Basically, we just
all rallied together --

within 24 hours,
we got people on planes,

we put posters together.

Was my father calling me,

and he told me
he had seen on the news

that something bad
has happened in Thailand,

but he told me not to worry

because they're only
talking about Phuket.

And my girls were up in Khao Lak
with my ex-husband, Joun.

But as I didn't get contact
from them,

I started to get worried about

if something
had happened to them.

We decided to go down to look
for our family ourselves.

My purpose with the trip
was to go down

and get them back
to Sweden alive.

I couldn't think
in any other way.

For me they were alive.

And actually,
when we went on the plane,

I felt a little bit,
"This is just stupid --

probably when we land
in Thailand,

I will have information

that they are already back
in Sweden."

There were Thai teams
that had deployed

from the Ministry
of Public Health

and they were working
on the deceased on the ground

in terms of trying
to conduct some process

that would assist them
in identification.

So Dr. Porntip
is a Khun Ying.

She's recognized
by the royal family.

So she has enormous
standing in Thailand.

She had a great deal of gravitas
and influence

with the Thai people.

And so she had set up
her operation at Takua Pa,

which was probably one of
the largest DVI sites initially.

Dr. Porntip was
a strong believer

in separating the Thai deceased
from non-Thai deceased

and running
a separate process.

From her perspective,

you could quickly identify
whether someone was Thai or not

based on their
physical appearance,

based on their clothing.

Ellis: If you have a line of
20 people who've died,

they may have looked
quite different during life,

but if you observe them
after one,

two or three days of death,

they will develop an appearance

that is quite indistinguishable
from each other in the sense

that they will all look bloated
and green or black.

Trying to make a determination
based on visual was impossible,

almost from the time
I arrived on the 29th

and started looking at deceased.

It was a very rapid
decomposition process

that to continue to utilize
that method was a facade --

even if you had early
photographs of that deceased,

how are you gonna have
confidence that that photograph

was then
definitely still that deceased?

And enable body release would,
to me, be extremely high risk.

And so you realized
that you have to use

more scientific methods
to distinguish them.

Do you have to look at various
aspects of the body

that are unique,
of which, of course,

the DNA is one,

fingerprints,
the dental appearance.

In those early days of the --
of the disaster,

there would have been
hundreds of bodies

released by different
Thai groups

operating at different sites
to families

who had believed they had
identified a missing person.

We didn't know how many of those
were correctly identified.

Because you don't make
one error.

If you release the wrong body,

that body was
a different identity.

You then immediately create
a second error.

For me, that was untenable.

It was a concern
for families, though,

because they were aware
of the foreigners

being separated out
from the Thais,

they were also aware
that bodies were being cremated.

The concern was,

how do I know that wasn't
one of my loved ones?

How do I know that it hasn't
got caught up

in a different process?

I was in the middle of nowhere.

I don't know
what happened really.

And I was naked
and I was so black

because I've got
so much mud everywhere.

I was like a nuclear bomb or
something like that, you know?

My first thing, instinct was,

"Where are they?
We have to find them."

I say, I'm going to go
where we were, to the hotel,

or try to find something there
if they're there.

So when I arrived there,

it's like everything gone.

There's no hotel anymore.

I became obsessed
about finding her any case.

Going to hospital,
every room.

From 6:00 to midnight,

doing that for days and days.

I was really on a mission.

My mission was, I need to find
them, I need to find them.

So we were the only hospital,
but also we were doing temples.

I gradually got up and started
shouting, just thought,

surely someone's got to hear me,
there's got to be someone there.

I wanted to find
Alice and Matt,

so I started screaming for them.

I started screaming for help.

The whole top half of my right
leg was open down to the bone.

I saw two guys.

And they stared back at me.

I was covered in blood
from head to toe.

They picked me up,
they carried me

in kind of a fireman's lift.

I told them about my mum
and that I saw her body.

Suddenly, Matt was there
by my side.

Um...

With a bandage round his head,
but he was walking.

Just knew that...

whatever was going to happen,

it was going to be easier now.

I couldn't work out
where Alice had gone.

I hadn't seen her
since that first wave.

And I thought she must be there
somewhere, she must be.

And maybe she is alive,
maybe she's stranded.

The bungalow where the kids
were sleeping was leveled.

You know?
I found my suitcase.

Found Sally's suitcase,

and we found most of our stuff.

But didn't find the kids.

So I just prayed
that they had survived

and somebody had taken them
to a hospital

and, you know, they were...safe.

A Thai woman came up
who had been one of the women

who cleaned at the resort,

and she said, "Babies."

So she just mimed that they were
sleeping and the wave had come

and had taken them,
and, you know,

and I said, "Did they get out?
Did anybody warn them?"

And she didn't understand
what I was saying.

But she -- so she just
kept repeating,

"Baby sleeping,"

and then doing the wave motion.

And at that point, we both
started crying because it was--

We just kept searching,
searching and searching

and searching,
and from dawn till dark.

Before there was some control,

there were families
going through

piles of bodies,
trying to find,

you know, their loved one,

and the despair

and the desperation
and the chaos,

the screaming, the wailing,

it was just an absolute
complete sensory overload.

I stop looking at
those dead body.

If I -- I find her,
we never know.

You collect hundreds of bodies,

and for the babies,

which I was sure about
my daughter, she was dead,

but I say, I have -- I need
to find her body also.

So for the babies, they cover
the face and everything.

So you have to unwrap
to see which baby was inside.

So I unwrapped, like,
so many of them.

They had lists
that were missing people,

lists that were coming
from the hospital,

and then they had lists
that were for survivors.

You would sign
a missing person list

and put everybody
that you're missing.

And then on the survivor list,
you put your name.

Everybody is, like,

trying to put photos
on the board.

"Have you seen this -- this --
those people," you know?

And, uh, yeah, and you...

you try, you hope,
you put in a number,

and you hope someone's
going to call you,

and say, "Oh, I see this woman,
I see that..."

Edie: We just didn't know
about Alice

because we were told
such conflicting information

during the time
we were in hospital in Krabi.

We were told my mum had died,

but my sister
was officially missing.

We were then told
that Alice was definitely dead.

And -- but then I was also down
on the list as having died, too.

So it was all incredibly
confused.

Krabi Hospital was just packed
full of people

lying on the ground, crying.

Part of my leg
were they were sewing up,

the anesthetic
didn't seem to have worked,

and I could just feel everything

and started
screaming out for more,

but they wouldn't give me
any -- any more.

And all around me,
I could just hear people

screaming and crying.

And then I started
screaming and crying.

And it was just...

Yeah, it was just horrible.

I knew how important it was
to try and find them

as quickly as possible

and try and identify them.

We felt very cut off
from what was happening,

but we had a television.

We could see and understand more

the fact that this had really
been almost a global event,

global catastrophe
that had happened.

Other foreign nations,
they had started to arrive...

And were looking for
their own --

so their process was,
they wanted to identify

their own nationals.

Everybody's been sent there
by their government,

and their job is to
identify their citizens

and return and repatriate
their citizens.

Now, you can't look at somebody
and go, "They're British."

You know, we don't have the flag
tattooed generally

on any part of our body
that allows you to do that.

You come from Asia,
come from Europe,

come from Australia, America --
they all look all the same,

because decomposing
is a natural process,

and body change in the same way.

Doesn't matter what color you
have before or what religion,

you know, what culture.

It doesn't matter because the
body decompose in the same way.

And I think every police force
that responded

from around the world
had that same initial belief.

And it was only
when we got there

and we saw the condition
of the victims,

that we realized what a
difficult task

that was going to be.

Because in that heat

and in that humidity

and with the fly and maggot
activity that's going on,

then you can see identification

disappearing
in front of your eyes.

More a body decomposes, you're
losing forensic opportunities

quite significantly.

Black: The whole thing is about
a race for time.

We need to get
these bodies cooled down.

We need to slow decomposition;
we need to halt it.

Get them frozen
so we could preserve

as much of the forensic evidence
as we could.

And then the next stage
was to be able

to get what
they call the "reefers" in,

which are
the refrigerated trucks.

Each nation has a way of doing
business in their home nation,

so when they come
and deploy somewhere,

they want to just do
what they would normally do.

But that's not possible
in an international operation

on this scale.

Some teams, field teams
in some countries had,

in the instances of
of identifying fingerprints,

found it easier to remove
the hands of victims

in order to correctly roll
a set of fingerprints

to forward for identification.

This certainly,
from a moral perspective,

we had a problem with that,

and we needed to issue
a very strong sanction

because we wanted to ensure
that everyone understood

that if you came to Thailand
and you joined the team,

that you would operate
to the protocols laid down

by the Interpol
compliant process.

So it was very, very soon clear

that we cannot work
just for our own victims.

On the 12th of January,
we got agreement

that it would be
an integrated process.

Separation of Thai
and non-Thai would cease,

and that all
postmortem information

relating to deceased persons,

whether they be
Thai or non-Thai,

would be combined
and sent to

the information management
center in Phuket.

It was absolutely pivotal that
all countries that were involved

had to put aside the fact

that they were representing
their own nation first,

had to put that aside
and join the TTVI,

the Thai tsunami victim
identification operation.

And if they agreed to that, then
they agreed to a new protocol

that we would identify all
persons deceased in the tsunami,

irrespective of race,
creed or nationality.

We moved from this very
difficult early stage

to something which was
more coherent,

more sustainable.

It was our best prospect
of getting the results

that everybody needed

as far as identifying
their family members

and having them return.

The mantra was,
we will get them home.

It was defining, I guess,
the mission for the whole TTVI.

We'll get everybody home --

we're not just going
to take some home,

we want everyone home.

We turned their area
where they prayed

into a mortuary overnight.

We left at five o'clock
one night and nothing was done.

We came back at, you know,
six o'clock the next morning

and there was basically
four walls and a roof,

and we were able to start doing
the things we needed to do.

It passed no building
regulations.

It passed no health inspection.

By putting up boards,
by installing air conditioning,

by moving in
the examination tables,

that us and other countries
had brought in for them,

but the Thais were very smart.

They realized it was something
they had to achieve

and they changed it very,
very well

within one week of the disaster,

we had the first postmortem
examinations performed

in that mortuary,

which, given the scale,
was quite extraordinary.

The purpose of this examination
wasn't to establish

a cause of death --
that was not an issue.

But the purpose of the
examination was to collect data

that could be used to identify
each individual body.

But knowing that we've got
literally thousands of bodies

to go through,
so you have to start somewhere.

So the pressure is just,
let's get it started.

The way in which it worked
was just unique

because it just brought 31
different nations into one room,

into one office,
into one process,

and everybody worked
alongside each other

because we were all there
for the same reason

and we were all there
for a common goal,

and that was to identify
the victims,

return them back
to their families,

and try and help Thailand
recover from

the situation they --
they found themselves in.

What I met in Thailand,
at the worst days of my life,

was all this kindness
from the Thai people.

I knew that was Thai people
that have lost everything,

lost not just relatives,

but everything --
homes, jobs, everything,

and still they were helping
the Western people.

They were actually
not of this world.

For me, my daughters were alive.

I wanted to go up and see
with my own eyes

what had happened up in
Khao Lak.

At that moment, I realized if...

if anyone has survived here,

they were the lucky ones.

I lost control over my body,
actually, I couldn't move.

It was like ev--

It was like...

Like all the strength
just left me.

And then we left the day after.

And I came home without them.

Edie: The British government
had chartered

a plane leaving Bangkok.

I had to have
some medical attention

very quickly back in the UK.

The moment that the plane
left the tarmac,

I just had a real feeling of --
feeling in my gut

that it was just wrong, that...

Why were we leaving

when my mum and Alice
were there somewhere?

Why were we leaving them
and where was I going?

Well, I was going home,
but where was that to now?

I cover quite a lot of
the area

and I don't see
her name anywhere,

I don't see her in any room
in hospital.

After two weeks, got no chance,
you know,

I was sure I'd done
everything to find them.

And it started by -- I think
it was my friends,

and they realized
I was getting a bit crazy

and they say, "You have to go,
you have to quit this."

Because me, I want to --
I want to stay there

until I find them.

But I was getting a bit --
without sleeping, you know,

so I think that's why
they put me on the plane.

You know, I couldn't fight that.

I was told that Patrice
needed to get back

because of
suicidal survivor's guilt.

And it was very important
that he would get back to Paris

and be looked after medically.

They put him in hospital
for a couple of days to sleep

because he needed to sleep,

he just -- just had --
he couldn't --

he didn't want to sleep because
he didn't want to close his eyes

and have that vision again.

But he kept saying he didn't
think that Ruby had to live.

That's what he kept
saying to me.

He didn't think it was possible
that she could have survived

because he'd seen her go
into a whirlpool.

And, um...

A-and he did say to me
sometimes that he thought

that Sam had given up
because she'd seen her baby go.

Uh...

But I kept saying to him
that I didn't believe that.

I didn't think
that she'd given up.

I said she probably went down,

because he said
she went down under

and he said that was giving up.

And I said, no, she probably
went down to look for her child.

I thought that Sam was alive.

Well, she was bigger than life.

I think that's what
most people would say.

Somebody from -- from the hotel
in Khao Lak had told me

that they had seen a lady
go up to the hills

with a baby --

she had long black hair
and a baby,

and that they'd seen her
going up to the hills.

Really, sometimes you just say,
"Okay, maybe she --

there is hope if she find her."

You never know.

Until you don't have the body,
you never know.

So...

Slater: I think the not knowing
is -- must be an awful thing.

And particularly in these
open disasters

where there's always that
nagging question in their mind,

are they somewhere else

and have they not --
just not come forward?

We've tried to de--
to deceive ourselves

sometimes, you know,
that, you know,

if -- if they haven't been
identified, they must be alive.

Well, that's not
necessarily the case.

We would continue to hold
the belief

that they were okay,

that they had made it up
the mountain,

that they were
in a camp somewhere,

and that, you know,
we would find them.

We searched the lists.

There was a dive shop
there on the main street,

and the dive shop had lists
of people who were alive.

Yeah, we found my brother on
a list at this dive shop.

incredulous.

It was just ecstatic, you know?

"Oh, my God,
thank you, God."

It was just such a relief.

It was...
It was Joy.

Well, his name
was spelled correctly,

and so that was a good sign,

since he's -- we all have
very different names.

If it was spelled correctly,
then he must be coherent enough

to tell someone
how to spell his name.

And so that became the mission,
then, was to go to the hospital

where they said he was and --
and find him.

And we wandered around
looking for him

and couldn't find him anywhere.

We did find out that he'd been
moved to Phuket,

so we went down
to Phuket at that point.

And when we got
to the hospital there,

they told us
that he had checked himself out.

He had left
against medical advice.

And so we were left
with the fear that --

and the anxiety that he was
wandering around Phuket,

and we didn't know what kind
of condition he was in.

We thought maybe he was just
wandering around thinking

that he didn't have
any family anymore.

Couldn't find him.

The U.S. embassy in Washington
had gotten a call from Jai,

from Bangkok Hospital
in Bangkok,

and he had been
medevacked to Bangkok.

When I walked in
the hospital room,

he was sleeping

and I just stood there
and watched him breathe.

And then I went over
and kissed him on the forehead

and he opened his eyes
and then said, "Hi, Sal."

And I... "Hi, sweetie,
how are you doing?"

And he said.

And I really think the only
way that I survived it

was I just knew
that it wasn't my time to go

and I kept telling myself,
like, "This is not my time.

This is not how I go.

I can get through this.

It's not my time.
It's not my time."

My sister Kali,
she woke up,

and she just started screaming,

"Oh, my God, Jai,
come look at this,

you've got to see this,
you've got to see this."

And I really had no idea
what it was --

I was half asleep,
all I was wearing was boxers.

So, I -- I mean,
I took my earplugs out

and then all of a sudden
through the palm trees,

I saw this giant 30 foot wave

coming, like,
right at the bungalow.

And at that point, I just said,

we have got to get
the hell out of here.

And I just ran for the door.

And the glass shattered

and the whole thing
was under water,

and I was under water
the second I open the door,

and just being tossed
and turned.

And I finally surfaced after
about 30 seconds and realized

I was still holding the earplugs

that I had taken out of my head
a few minutes ago

because I wouldn't even
have been awake

had my sister not woken me up.

I had to deal with being injured
at 16 with no money or passport

and just a pair of boxers
that I was wearing to my name.

Sally: And he said,
"How are Dad and Shonti?"

And I said,
"They're still in Khao Lak

and they're looking for Kali,"

and he said,
"She didn't make it."

And I said,
"Well, you know your father,

and he will keep looking until
he's decided that for himself."

Nathalie: I decided to fly
straight away to Thailand

to see if I could find them.

I kept thinking
that she was alive.

I think, you know, it was...

too hard for me to --
to even contemplate

that she was dead.

And so we were appointed
two rangers and a driver.

We went up into the --
into the hills.

I was loaded with photocopies
of a photo of Sam and Ruby.

Reporter: Miles away from
Thailand's beaches,

Nathalie Archer is
on the loneliest of searches,

she's been told her
missing sister, Sam,

and baby niece Ruby Rose
might have been spotted

walking into the hills --
for weeks,

she's been trying to find them.

Until a body or the DNAs
have been done,

you know, I think that I will,
you know, carry on believing.

After, I think, the second
or the third day, we'd --

we'd walked, and then they said,
"That's it, that's finished."

And, you know, I just burst into
tears and told them that

I knew that
she was out there somewhere

and that they had to help me.

And, um...

and I took these maps
and said,

"I don't think
you've taken me here,"

which was the immediate
mountain hill above,

or that's where
their resort was.

When we came back down
and we hadn't found anything

or... or anybody,

I just felt the whole time
that everybody would see.

I -- I kept saying,
"You'll all see, I'm right."

Phuket was
a holiday destination

with a lot of families
and a lot of young children

from very, very young,
from, you know,

from a few months old,

brought up and through --
through teenagers.

These families are
absolutely devastated,

and you really want to try
and protect your people

from being exposed to something
which is too real

because it makes it
very hard for them

emotionally to deal
with their work.

But when you actually start
to personally connect

with their grief,
and their loss,

that's --
that's really hard.

I don't think there was anybody

that I worked with
that didn't connect.

Very early in the police,
my, um...

one of my team came to me...

And I was quite surprised
about it,

but she came to me
and she said,

"Boss, we'd like to do
all the kids first.

Can we work through the children
and get the children all done?

Once the antemortem
information comes in,

we'll have that postmortem
information for all the children

and perhaps they can be
some of the first identified."

Black: What we always think
about in a mass fatality event

is the mortuary and the deceased

and identifying the deceased,

but it's only one half
of an equation.

There is a complete
other half of the equation

because disaster
victim identification

is about matching information.

The body gives us
the information

in the postmortem examination;

we need to record that.

But we also need to have
information to match it to.

And that's the antemortem
information.

We have to collect as much
information as we can

on every single body

and hope that some of it
we collect

will match something
from the postmortem information.

And it may be a dental record,

or it may be
a fingerprint record,

or it may be the DNA profile.

The difficulty is collecting
the information

about the missing persons,

is the fact that we have to go

to some village
in the far north of Norway

because there's a small --
there's a couple

who've been on holiday
from some village

in the far north of Norway
who happen to died in Phuket.

I managed to -- to hold him

as we were tossed around
under the water.

Eventually, we reached
the surface

and I was still holding him
with both hands.

And I remember that we were
traveling inland

and the speed of 40,
45 kilometers per hour.

And I remember the palm trees
sticking up,

sticking up like small bushes.

I tried to hold him
with both hands

and still pedal with my feet

in order to keep us both
at the surface.

But I was constantly pulled down
by the water.

And when I was,
I also pulled him down with me.

So I tried to change grip
and just take his one arm.

And that way, I could have
one arm to pedal better

and also to push him up
and hold --

keep him at the surface
as we were flushed inland.

But he had sun lotion
on his arm,

and so I lost him.

He was only two years and eight
months old when this happened.

Of course, when we searched for
him in case of he being

alive and well somewhere,
we stayed on.

We felt that
we had brought Ragnar

to the other side of the world,

we couldn't leave him there.

Children are
inherently difficult

in any mass fatality incident.

They generally don't have
dental records

of not any significant,

particularly if they're
young babies,

and trying to recover babies'
antemortem fingerprints

is extremely difficult,

and of course
the same would apply to DNA.

You don't get an idea of
the children very quickly...

You have to wait,
you have to wait.

Then again, I think
the human mind,

with a mother or father,
or grandmother and grandfather,

will start to spin on,

"Did she suffer?
Did they have pain?

She crying out?"

Not knowing.

Um...

You go from hope to despair

maybe many times every hour
or every day,

and it's very hard
to relate to

because you don't know and there
is nothing you can do about it.

Now, the problem with regards
to the Thai victims

was that quite often families,

whole families were killed
in the tsunami.

So you couldn't get necessarily

the same degree
of antemortem data

that you would have got,
say, from Europe.

Not only were we dealing with
the recovered deceased victims,

but there was an enormous
amount of property

that was also recovered,

and that led to another
operation in its own right.

I don't know what was --
what was more bad --

working on the bodies or with
the -- with the property,

because I think the property was
like a surprise pack--

every pack you opened,

you didn't know
what was inside.

Was it a finger with a ring?

Or was it a skull
with something in the hair?

I think the first thing
that we got news back in Sydney

was they'd found some
personal effects --

Christian's, you know,
a bag and part of a passport.

Part of a phone.

We take off all clothing,
because the brand,

the name can give us
some information --

maybe this brand from underwear
come from Sweden.

So we cleaned it.

We had a dirty area

with high pressure water
and people cleaned.

But you can see also the power
of the tsunami,

if you see, you know,
the power of these waves,

you can see on the item,
you know --

watches destroyed,
glass destroyed,

telephones broken,

credit cards broken,

um, glasses.

It costs a lot of money
and manpower.

But at the end,

people who lost their loved ones
get something back.

Well, when Christian
was married,

as part of the service,
the wedding rings

were put onto a --
onto a table,

and they were passed
amongst all the guests

to touch and bless
and passed them on.

And I did ask
whether my son's wedding ring

had been found,

and they said no.

So when we got the initial news

that there were personal effects
had been found,

but there was no body,
we still held out...

some h--
obviously some hope.

It took five months
for confirmation

that that body was Christian,
so it was May 2005.

Moi, she was
identified earlier,

a lot earlier, actually,
in February.

It was difficult to receive
that information,

but in other ways, it was...

it was almost helpful

because the limbo
is so excruciating.

But once you know,

you can then deal with,
or process,

and we needed that confirmation,
because otherwise,

you just -- you can't put
any parameters around it,

you can't grieve properly,

you can't deal with it.

And when the belongings were
given to me at Sydney Airport

by the federal police,
I happened to look at them all

and then I ran my hand
through the seam of the bag

and there,
locked in the seam,

was the wedding ring.

And of course, I wear that today

as part of my reminder of him

and him still being --
being with me.

By rejoicing in having that
and having him

as a part of the remaining
journey that I have to make.

The property,
many people think

as a part of the soul
of the lost relative, you know.

I think
that importance of,

there's a body
you want to honor

that that body of
your loved one,

and make sure its journey

is done respectfully
and with with honor.

And each -- each item tell you
a story finally --

shows you the last second

or last 10 seconds
of this human.

And they would photograph
rings, clothing, scars,

and so you'd have a sheet
of four or five pictures

of this body with a number.

And so instead of looking at

the bodies at this point,
we were just looking at

a wall of images.

Shonti found Kali's picture

on the board.

Dad!
Dad, this is her!

This is her shirt,
the one that she bought!

Oh, my God.
Oh!

No doubt in my mind it was her.

And I can't even talk
about the boards.

So...

We knew it was there.

I don't remember ever
breaking down

because of what we were
doing operationally,

but I do remember
getting very upset about

the kind of -- you know,
when you think too much

about the personal loss
that people are having.

Anders: After seven months,
we were pretty convinced

that he actually had died.

When they came and informed us

that he was --
that Ragnar was identified,

it was sad information
because it meant

that all hope of finding him
alive was gone,

but also a relief.

Anders: We then knew
what had happened

and we also had the opportunity

to take him home

and give him his final
resting place here at home.

Forest: Every identification
that was made

in its own way
was celebrated.

It was celebrated because it was
part of the success story

of what we were
trying to achieve.

But for thousands of
identifications that we made,

one mistake would undo
all of that.

And to my knowledge,

there were
two separate incidents

where identification mistakes
were made.

A Dutch male that was
identified as a French male,

I always remember the mother
of that Dutch man

coming at Phuket
with her family

just to ask us what went wrong.

We took them all the way
around the operation.

We explained to them
how the mistake had taken place.

But for me to look that mother
in the eye

at that particular time

and tell her how sorry we were
but we'd made a mistake

is probably the hardest thing
I've ever done in my life.

Because I looked directly
into her eyes,

and for me,

that was a situation
that should never have arisen.

It aris--
it arose

due to
an administrative mistake.

A set of fingerprints was filed
in the wrong file.

Hugo: I never think
in Thailand --

I have no time for thinking

about all these bad images
I have in my head.

And you come home,
then all of a sudden,

you know,
something is different,

and you have time to think

about what happened
the last 12 months.

I was thinking too much
sometimes about

how does the family feel now?

I couldn't switch off.

And after one year,
my body collapsed.

Diagnosis was post-traumatic
stress disorder.

And just take me to hospital

for seven and a half months
to recover.

I think this was
the main problem,

because when you work
under these circumstances

for a long time,

suffer with the relatives
or be sad like the relatives,

this makes you sad
and sick afterwards.

It's my story
and it makes me proud too.

Before you would do this again?
I say yes.

Even though I know I --

maybe I become sick afterwards,

I would do this again.

We were told by a Australian
pathologist, wonderful man,

can't remember his name,
but that he had

absolute certainty
that the body in this casket

was Kali
from her dental records.

He encouraged us not to look.

But my --
for myself personally,

um...

I would have wanted to look
at the remains.

I think not viewing the body
or the remains,

um...

There could have been anybody
in that coffin.

Sussi: The last time I saw them
were in Sweden

when they were jumping into
the taxi, going to Thailand.

And here I stood in front
of a white coffin.

And when it came
to my own daughters, I --

I told them I had to see them.

I can't stand
at the white coffin

and you telling me
this is my daughter.

And they really -- at first,
they really didn't want me

to -- to see them

because they didn't --

they weren't sure I would...
make it.

Swedish police, they actually
brought me pictures

of her before

so I could look at them before
I met her

to prepare myself.

And I mean,
it wasn't so much left of them.

But I -- I could recognize
my daughters.

And actually,
Eleanor had my bikini on still,

my bikini -- on the pictures,
not when I saw them.

Just...

skeleton left,

but I -- you know, you --
if you're a mother,

you recognize the bone,

the hip bones, every --
you can see that it's your kid.

And people they told me
you should remember them

as they was,
and blah, blah, blah.

I still remember them as they
was, because that was --

for me, it was a little bit,
"Okay, it's them,

but they are not here
any longer."

I couldn't save them,

but at least
I could be with them...

Until the end, kind of,
for me.

Until I didn't find
Sam's body,

sometime I was thinking,
"Maybe she's alive,

someone just grab her
and save her," you know,

so I think it's really important
that people knows

straight on what's happened
with the bodies

and the identification
should be really efficient.

Nathalie: When they found
the body and they told us

that they'd autopsied it
and showed me the proof...

And I didn't believe them,

because it wasn't like seeing
a photocopy,

it was like, well, this is a
dental record from her dentist

and this is the dental record
from from the corpse,

and they completely different.

So I was going, "You're trying
to make me believe you,

but you're showing me something
that, you know,

I'm not a forensic and I haven't
studied forensic science,

but I can't, um,
I can't believe you,

now, with what you're
showing me.

It wasn't until
the 19th of February

that the postmortem took place.

By that time, they had actually
got the odontograms

and the fingerprints

and they used that to identify
Sam putatively,

together with the jewelry.

Straight on, I saw her watch
and a ring,

I say, for sure it's her now.

Mm-hmm.

Christine: And it was so obvious
to everyone around the table

that it was an exact match,

but she couldn't take it in,
she couldn't accept it,

and she ran out of the room
saying,

"No, it's not my sister."

So I had to go out and actually
just cuddle her and say,

"We have got to accept this.

This is Sam."

All your illusions have...
have been shattered.

I think I just ran out, um...

into the street...

Um, and cried and...

Because I think grief
within a family

is always very difficult

and it usually either brings you
together or it tears you apart.

Even though I wasn't actually
in the -- in the tsunami,

I did have awful guilt.

I felt I should have been me,
it shouldn't have been her.

And I start drinking.

I start drinking
and taking drugs.

It took me eight years
to deal with

and face what happened to me.

When I stop drinking
and taking drugs

and I see a therapist,
now is hope --

and I'm lucky, I've got
a new wife and a new baby,

so I'm not alone,

and they have me,
but it's not easy every day.

This little thing,
she's four months, and, uh,

she's beautiful,
so I have to fight for her,

I have to be here for her.

Edie: Why wasn't Alice found?

It didn't make --
it didn't make sense.

Everything else seemed
to have got washed up

or have reached
a beach eventually.

But why...

why didn't Alice?

What had happened?

Maybe she'd lost her memory.

Maybe she'd been misidentified.

I would see people walking down
the street who looked like her,

her height,
walked in the same way.

It still feels unfinished.

She's still here with me.

If you never
get that body back --

and you speak to families
who have a missing person,

they talk about their life
going into a stutter,

that they just can't get beyond
there because they don't know.

And it's the not knowing
of where they are

and what happened to them
that causes this gaping hole.

There's no closure.

So that whole notion of identity
is one that

is due to the human condition,

and that is why
it has to be treated

with such respect and dignity.

It's the only dignity
we can offer

a family who've lost someone
that they loved,

is, well,
here is your loved one back,

and this is their name.