TSUNAMI LOST BOY - HAPPY ENDING - 12 January 2005

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URGENT APPEAL FOR INFORMATION

 

We have received this message asking for assistance:  "Please send this to all ­we mean all! ­ To all the people in your entire network. We are looking for his family."

 

 

Tsunami victim - Khoa Lak, Phuket

 

 

The boy is about 2 years old, found in Khoa Lak - he is missing his parents.  Nobody knows what country he comes from.  If anybody knows him or any of his family please contact the relief agency by phone: 076-249400-4 ext. 1336, 1339 or email :  info@phuket-inter-hospital.co.th

 

URGENT APPEAL UPDATE

 

We have now heard from Koen Cuypers with an update, and thanks to Koen for letting us know to call off the search.

 

 Swedish boy is reunited with father in Thailand

 

PHUKET, Thailand (AP) — A Swedish toddler was reunited with his weeping father in a Thai hospital Wednesday, days after the 18-month-old was found sitting alone on a roadside in the aftermath of the tsunami disaster. The boy's mother is among some 5,000 people still missing in Thailand.

 

Hannes Bergstroem, his face scratched and pocked with mosquito bites and his hand bandaged, looked bemused as his father choked up with emotion. The father, also scratched and bruised, lay in a hospital bed, holding Hannes with ballons around them.

 

Hannes was found alone on a roadside near a Thai beach resort Sunday night and he was taken by helicopter to a hospital for treatment. The hospital staff posted his photo on the Internet Monday in an effort to locate his family.

His uncle, who spotted the photo, claimed the boy Tuesday and set up the reunion with the father, Marko Karkkainen, at a hospital on the southern Thai island of Phuket where both father and son were receiving treatment.

 

Hannes

 

 

There were reports that an anonymous Thai princess arranged the helicopter that brought Hannes from the road to the hospital. Karkkainen said he had been told of the reports.

"I have been to Thailand seven times, and this time only confirmed what I know about Thai people — that they are so generous and caring," he said. "She has saved his life, but also my soul because I couldn't survive if I lost them both," he said referring to his son and the boy's mother.

 

The mother, Suzanne Bergstroem, has been missing since the giant earthquake-spawned waves hit on Sunday, plowing into the Thai resorts where thousands of Western tourists were vacationing.

Nearly 2,000 people are confirmed dead in Thailand as of 29 December 2004, among nearly 77,000 killed across a dozen countries.


Fortunately, this incident had a happy ending: Hannes' uncle spotted the photo on 28 December 2004, and Hannes and his father, Marko Karkkainen, were reunited at the hospital the next day.  

 

Origins:   Natural disasters of the scale of the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami of December 2004 inevitably end up separating people as they flee for safety or are caught up in the effects of the disaster, creating a period fraught with worry as family members anxiously search for their loved ones. Sometimes survivors are too sick or injured to get in touch with the rest of their families, sometimes they're well but simply can't get a message through in all the chaos, and sometimes — as in this case — they can't communicate who they are because they're too young or they speak a language rescuers can't understand.

 

 

 

Marko Karkkainen and his son Hannes Bergstroem


Hannes Bergstroem, a 2-year-old Swedish boy, was caught up in the tsunami that struck Thailand on 26 December 2004 and separated from his father. He was reportedly rescued and helicoptered to a hospital through the efforts of a Thai princess, where he was treated for scratches and mosquito bites but was otherwise okay. As he was too young to adequately identify himself to rescuers (who didn't even know his nationality) or to provide sufficient information for them to locate his parents, a doctor at Phuket International Hospital in Thailand mailed out the boy's photo on the Internet with an appeal for help with the identification.

 

 

Many thanks for all you help and a speedy recovery to Marko and Hannes,  Nelson Kruschandl

 

 

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DESCRIPTION & HISTORYAFTERMATH AID & MESSAGES  |  DECEMBER 30 2004  |  DECEMBER 27 2004

 

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CONTACT:  nelson@solarnavigator.net  +44 (0) 7905 147709 (UK)

 

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