TSUNAMI
Letter to the Secretary of State for Foreign
and Commonwealth Affairs from the Chairman of the Committee, 13
January 2005
All Members of the Foreign Affairs Committee
have followed anxiously the terrible events around the Indian
Ocean following the undersea earthquake and consequent tsunami
wave just after Christmas. The true scale and horror of these
events became apparent only gradually and none of us appreciated
at first how many people were directly affected.
Although the thoughts of all of us are with
the many thousands of local people who died or whose lives have
been devastated, as members of a Committee of Parliament I and
my colleagues on the FAC have a duty to focus on the position
of British citizens caught up in the disaster, and on the support
provided to them by the FCO.
The Committee has of course noted press reports
of alleged FCO shortcomings in the period immediately following
the tsunami, including the leader in the Independent of
29 December. Allegations have centred on unpreparedness of official
bodies, lack of capacity at the call centre in London, lack of
sensitivity on the part of some officials, and errors committed
by others. I make no judgment on the validity of any of these
claims, save that even if some are valid in part, all would have
to be placed in the context of the unprecedented scale of the
disaster. I think it would be helpful to the Committee and, potentially,
to a wider audience, if we were to receive a detailed commentary
on the main criticisms which have appeared in the press, balanced
perhaps by some of the tributes paid to the official response
by bodies such as the APTA and by private individuals. A detailed
chronology of key actions and decisions taken by the FCO would
also assist us greatly in understanding the sequence of events.
Finally, we would hope to receive your views on the lessons learnt,
which could be applied in the event of any future major disaster,
much as we all hope nothing this awful will ever occur again.
I recognise that key officials are still working
very hard on dealing with the emergency and with those affected
by it (indeed, I understand that a member of your parliamentary
relations team is among those now in Phuket). I do not, therefore,
wish to suggest a deadline for receipt of your response; I am
sure you will do your best to get it to us so that we are able
to consider and publish it before the Easter recess.
Rt Hon Donald Anderson MP
Chairman of the Committee
13 January 2005
Letter to the Chairman of the Committee
from the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs,
9 March 2005
Thank you for your letter of 13 January about
the FCO response to the tsunami disaster in the Indian Ocean.
I appreciate the flexibility you offered over the timing of our
reply.
The Committee asked for a detailed commentary
on the main criticisms of the FCO which appeared in the press
balanced by some of the tributes paid to its work under difficult
circumstances. The Committee also requested a chronology of events
as well as information on the lessons learnt from this tragedy
for the handling of any future major disaster.
A Memorandum covering these issues is attached.
Rt Hon Jack Straw MP
Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs
9 March 2005
Annex 1
OVERVIEW
1. As the Committee recognised in its letter,
this was a disaster on an unprecedented scale. The tsunami was
the second largest earthquake on record and one of the worst natural
catastrophes in living memory. Within a matter of hours the tsunami
had hit thirteen countries in two continents affecting thousands
of kilometres of coastline. The final death toll of the tsunami
will never be known but the Red Cross and Red Crescent have given
an estimation of 295,708 people. Among these, as of 8 March, there
were 190 British nationals who were dead or missing feared dead.
(By way of comparison, of these, 161 of deaths were in Thailand,
25 in Sir Lanka and 3 in Maldives. Sixty-seven British nationals
were killed in the terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre
and 28 were killed in the Bali bombing.) 75 British nationals
are in Category 2. It is likely that the final casualty toll from
the tsunami will represent the largest loss of British life overseas
in a single incident since the Second World War. Many hundreds
more were injured, lost possessions or suffered emotional trauma.
2. In the context of this overwhelming tragedy,
the FCO provided an immediate and targeted response. Over the
past few years, partly as a response to the terrorist attacks
in New York and Bali, we have done a good deal of work to develop
more effective crisis management systems, learning from our own
experience and that of others. Most recently, in 2004, all FCO
posts were asked to ensure their emergency plans were up to date
and set out in a new common format, and to exercise them. In the
event, the action by posts, by the rapid deployment teams that
were sent out from London and from the region, and by the operation
in the UK, closely followed the FCO Emergency Guidance procedures.
I believe that the improvements we have made in recent years,
including the setting up of a 24-hour Response Centre and the
introduction of Rapid Deployment Teams, meant that we were able
to respond much more effectively to the tsunami than would have
been possible even two years ago. I should also like to pay tribute
to the many individual members of FCO staff who volunteered to
work very long hours under the most extreme of circumstances.
As the Prime Minister said in his statement to the House on 10
January, it is clear that FCO staff on the whole did "a magnificent
and exceptional job."
3. However, the sheer scale of the tsunami
stretched our resources. It required a bigger response than we
had available and it was difficult for the FCO and posts to provide
the service we would have wished in all cases. I have set out
a more detailed analysis of the media criticism directed at the
FCO below. Some of it was unfair, but much of it reflected genuine,
if rare, dissatisfaction with the level of consular assistance,
understandable in particular cases. We heed this criticism. We
are currently in the process of finalising our internal lessons
learned report, some of the main emerging findings of which are
also outlined below. Prior to the tsunami we had already invited
the National Audit Office to undertake a review of the FCO's consular
assistance work and the scope of that review has now been expanded
to include the assistance we gave to British tsunami victims.
CHRONOLOGY
4. The Committee's letter made particular
reference to "alleged FCO shortcomings in the period immediately
following the tsunami". In the chronology below we have therefore
concentrated on the action we took in the first 48-hours after
the tsunami hit, although we have also attempted to provide some
details of subsequent FCO action. I am sure that the Committee
will appreciate that it is not possible to give a detailed chronology
up until the present moment of what is a disaster with continuing
consequences.
5. At 0058hrs GMT an earthquake measuring
9.3 on the Richter scale hit the Indian Ocean, 150 miles north-west
of the Indonesian island of Sumatra. Fifteen minutes later 30
feet high waves began to strike the coasts of northern Sumatra
and the Nicobar Islands. Half an hour later the tsunami reached
parts of Thailand and by 0245hrs GMT waves were striking the coasts
of Sri Lanka and India. The Maldive Islands were hit at 0430hrs
GMT. It took a further six hours for the tsunami to reach the
east coast of Africa.
6. In London, by 0530hrs GMT on 26 December,
three and a half hours after the first waves had hit Thailand
and Sri Lanka, the FCO's 24-hour Response Centre staff had contacted
the FCO's Head of Consular Crisis Group. Further contact was made
with the Foreign Secretary, the Director General with responsibility
for consular services, the Director of Consular Services, all
relevant posts, the Head of the Consular Emergency Response Team
and other members of Consular Crisis Group.
7. Our Emergency Response Team, which is
staffed by FCO staff with consular experience, was operational
by 0830hrs and the emergency telephone number was advertised nationally.
However, it was immediately apparent that the FCO's internal call
handling capacity was unable to cope with the huge number of incoming
calls. We therefore asked the Metropolitan Police to take over
all call handling. This was in line with a service level agreement
signed in 2004 following the opening of the new Casualty Bureau
call handling facility at Hendon. All calls were routed through
to Hendon by 1500hrs.
8. The FCO's Crisis Group also made contact
on 26 December with the three principal tour operator umbrella
groups—the Association of British Travel Agents (ABTA),
the Association of Independent Travel Operators (AITO) and the
Federation of Travel Operators (FTO)—and their members.
These contacts continued in daily teleconferences and allowed
vital sharing of information, co-ordination of assistance and
the repatriation of several thousand uninjured/walking wounded
survivors from the Maldives, Sri Lanka and Thailand.
9. The Crisis Management Group made arrangements
for a Rapid Deployment Team (RDT) to travel to Colombo to cover
Sri Lanka and the Maldives. These teams are made up of FCO staff
with consular experience and are trained to deal specifically
with large-scale consular emergencies. They have the communications
and other equipment to enable them to operate self-sufficiently
in disaster zones. Trained consular officers from Hong Kong, Singapore,
Kuala Lumpur and New Delhi, who were on standby over the Christmas
period, formed a second team and went to Thailand. These teams
arrived in Sri Lanka and Thailand respectively on 27 December.
A total of fourteen RDT members were deployed from London to Sri
Lanka; and 31 staff from London and posts in the region went to
Thailand. After this initial deployment, the FCO sent a further
ten FCO staff to Sri Lanka and 38 to Thailand.
10. We contacted the Metropolitan Police
at Heathrow at lunchtime on 27 December. By 1600hrs they had put
in place multi-agency reception facilities at Heathrow and other
airports, including the London Ambulance Service, British Red
Cross, CRUSE Bereavement counsellors and TravelCare (a partly
FCO funded charitable organisation). These reception teams met
all the flights (schedule and charter) returning from the affected
region. Over the first 24-hour period the team at Heathrow met
30 planes. The Department for Work and Pensions and the FCO also
sent staff to Heathrow to help provide emergency crisis loans
for anyone returning from the region who had lost everything in
the tsunami.
11. The first waves hit parts of Thailand
at around 0845 hrs local time. Further waves battered the coast
throughout the morning. Initial reports coming from the area were
very short and lacked detail. A team from the British Embassy
in Bangkok, led by the Ambassador, left Bangkok at about 1615hrs
local time on 26 December by road, as the airport in Phuket was
closed. This team (numbering thirteen including the Ambassador)
reached Phuket by midnight. In the meantime, following the reopening
of the airport, three further Embassy staff, including the Vice
Consul, travelled to Phuket by a special Thai government flight
and arrived there at 2300hrs. The Vice Consul immediately set
up an office at the main Town Hall in Phuket where many of the
casualties had gathered.
12. Our Consular Correspondent in Phuket,
who acts as an unofficial and unpaid Honorary Consul, offered
the Embassy team office accommodation. This office was running
from 0100hrs on 27 December. Another team went to the nearby resort
of Krabi in the early hours of 27 December. During the night of
26-27 December, other members of the Phuket team travelled to
hospitals in Phuket, and to Phuket airport. From the Phuket office
we continued to deploy trained staff to different locations including
the very badly affected resorts of Khao Lak and Koh Phi Phi as
well as Koh Lanta and Krabi. The British Embassy office in Phuket
remained staffed 24 hours a day until 15 January. Staff attempted
to cover as large an area as possible, giving priority to locations
where the pressures and needs of victims and their families seemed
greatest.
13. The Thai authorities at Phuket airport
were providing free flights to get people out of the affected
region. Victims and their families were passing through quickly.
For the first 48 hours, which was the period when many of the
British tourists in the area would have left, the Embassy team
assessed that there was a greater need for them to have staff
at Phuket town hall, local hospitals and other badly hit resorts
rather than at Phuket airport. However, after those first 48 hours,
they had established a team at the airport throughout the day
to provide assistance to distressed British nationals.
14. In Bangkok, the Embassy established
teams by the evening of 26 December to cover reception of evacuees,
phone handling, hospital visiting and research of government and
other websites. Staffing of these teams included spouses and volunteers,
including ten staff provided by Standard Chartered Bank and two
by Citibank to collate data.
15. The UK presence at Bangkok airport was
both the first to arrive and the largest of any country. The teams
were in place to meet the very first groups of evacuees who arrived
back in Bangkok on a series of special flights from about 1800hrs
on 26 December. The airport team spread out and established prominent
UK desks in the international, domestic and military terminals.
They were well ahead of other Embassies including the US—whose
citizens we also assisted in the early stages. The involvement
of the Airline Liaison Officer, together later with his regional
supervisor from New Delhi, ensured exceptional degrees of access
within the airport, including normally restricted areas, and excellent
co-operation with BA/Qantas and other major airlines. This helped
the swift return of many distressed British national evacuees
to the UK using seats available on scheduled flights.
16. The Bangkok consular team handled large
numbers of evacuees who had lost passports, money, other documents
and clothing—approximately 600 in the first five days. They
provided free food in the Embassy Club on a 24 hour basis and
free clothing (both donated items and sets of Union Jack emblazoned
t-shirts and shorts bought from a local market). They also hired
a local photographer to join the consular team for several days
to provide free passport photographs. One member of staff looked
after two orphaned boys in her flat until their aunt was able
to take them back to the UK. The FCO chartered a special flight
from Bangkok on 1 January to return 94 stranded British and other
European nationals.
17. The first waves hit Sri Lanka at 0845hrs
local time. An incident centre was opened in the High Commission
at midday on 26 December. It was staffed on a 24/7 basis until
7 January, partly by spouses and adult dependants of UK-based
staff and other volunteers.
18. The first consular team was deployed
by helicopter to Galle on the south-west coast of Sri Lanka on
27 December. The Rapid Deployment Team (RDT) sent from London
also arrived on 27 December and was reinforced by a further four
officers on 29 December. The RDT operated in an integrated fashion
with the incident centre and provided two mobile consular teams
for the south coast.
19. Our High Commission in Colombo arranged
the evacuation of British and foreign nationals from Aragum Bay
on the east coast and the Unawattuna area on the south coast,
between 26 and 29 December. A first aid post, staffed by volunteer
British doctors, was set up at the High Commission on 28 December
to treat injured British nationals. British nationals arriving
at the High Commission from the coast were all registered and
given consular assistance as required. In addition, teams from
the High Commission visited the emergency shelter at the Bandaranaike
International Conference Centre and Colombo hotels to carry out
the registration process and provide consular services. The High
Commission manned a help desk at the conference centre on a 24
hour a day basis from 29 December to 31 December.
20. The High Commission's Airline Liaison
Officer spent much of the period 27-30 December at Colombo airport
helping British nationals get on flights home. We believe that
all British nationals who wished to leave the tsunami-affected
area had done so by 30 December and that all who wanted to return
home had left by the following day. The FCO chartered a flight
on 30 December from Brussels to London to pick up British nationals
brought back from Sri Lanka with other Europeans by a Belgian
charter.
21. In parallel, the High Commission's Development
Section was fully engaged on tsunami relief activities from 27
December onwards, with reinforcement by personnel from DFID's
Conflict and Humanitarian Affairs Department. An Operational Liaison
and Reconnaissance Team from the Permanent Joint Headquarter in
Northwood arrived on 31 December to co-ordinate the deployment
of UK military assets to provide relief to Sri Lanka and the Maldives.
22. The first waves hit the Maldives at
0930hrs local time. There is no British diplomatic mission in
the Maldives. The consular agent was out of the country. The Colombo
High Commission's Third Secretary Political travelled to the islands
as soon as the airport re-opened on 27 December. He was joined
there by a Military Intelligence Liaison Officer from the Ministry
of Defence. They opened a temporary office in the premises of
the consular agent's company, visited British nationals in hospital,
monitored the evacuation of British nationals by air, and liaised
with the local authorities and tour operators. By 30 December,
all British nationals who wanted to leave the Maldives had departed.
23. Our missions in Indonesia, Malaysia
and India were also active in confirming the safety of, and identifying
potentially missing, British nationals, although there were no
British nationals dead in those countries.
24. The vast majority of the British nationals
who wished to leave the region had done so by the beginning of
January. The focus of our efforts therefore increasingly turned
towards providing help and support to families of victims and
to others seriously affected by the tsunami including help with
the identification of those who had died. This effort continued
throughout January and is continuing. In London a dedicated FCO
Tsunami Crisis Unit, comprising a new team of staff, moved in
on 31 December. This unit was able to take over from the Crisis
Management Team who had been handling the crisis non-stop since
26 December. Its 16 full-time staff provided a 24-hour service
for families of those missing. The Unit was established to lead
on tsunami related work for a period of at least six months, thereby
providing continuity of contact for families, posts overseas and
other government departments. Extra staff also continued to be
deployed to the region—and in particular Thailand where
the majority of British victims were missing. By the end of January
the FCO had sent a total of 105 extra staff to Thailand, of whom
16 still remain in the country. During January the British Embassy
Office in Phuket had a staff of 24 UK-based officers drawn from
London and the region, making it a medium-sized post in its own
right.
25. As the Committee will understand, it
would not be possible to give a strict chronological account of
all the subsequent action the FCO has taken with regard to the
tsunami. However, I have listed below some of the most significant
events and the dates on which they occurred:
— We commissioned a British Red Cross
support-line for the victims of the disaster and their families
as well as a family support network. The help-line opened on 1
January.
— We agreed the need for police forensics
and identification teams to go to Thailand and Sri Lanka on 28
December. The first teams arrived in the region on 30 December.
They have been working with FCO staff and as part of the international
identification effort. By the end of January, 84 UK police officers
were deployed in the affected areas.
— The FCO funded the deployment of
portable mortuary facilities to the disaster areas in Sri Lanka
and Thailand. These facilities arrived in Sri Lanka on 1 January
and in Thailand on 1 January.
— The FCO arranged and funded a British
Red Cross team to go to Thailand to provide on-site counselling
and medical advice. The first members of the team arrived in Thailand
on 3 January. The team provided counselling for some 400 British
victims of the tsunami.
— On 29 December the FCO agreed a package
of assistance for British victims of the tsunami. The package
includes financial help with repatriation of bodies or mortal
remains, immediate medical expenses for those seriously injured,
medical evacuation, return travel for two members of the victim's
family and assistance with psychological support services.
— We led Whitehall-wide action to amend
death certification procedures for those tsunami victims who may
never be identified. These new procedures were announced in a
written statement to the House of Commons on 24 January.
— We organised a roundtable meeting
on 26 January between the police, professional institutions such
as the Centre for International Forensic Assistance (CIFA) and
university forensic departments to look at medium term forensic
needs.
— We have worked with the Metropolitan
Police to co-ordinate the deployment of police family liaison
officers to the families of those missing or killed in the tsunami.
At its peak, over 300 police family liaison officers had been
allocated to families—the largest deployment ever. This
included some deployments overseas.
MEDIA CRITICISM
26. In your letter, the Committee made particular
reference to the leading article in the Independent on 29 December
which was entitled "Worried families deserve better from
the Foreign Office". This article, along with examples of
some of the other media criticism directed at the FCO's initial
handling of the crisis, is attached to this letter as Annex A.
27. You will see from these clippings that
many of the critical stories that appeared in the press at this
time were, quite understandably, connected to individual cases,
some of which were the basis of a number of articles. In one or
two of these cases the criticism of our actions is largely or
wholly unfounded and conflicts with the testimony of independent
witnesses. A few others may have been the result of simple misunderstandings,
for example, the complainant may not have been aware of the extent
of our co-operation with EU partners in repatriating survivors
or of the existence of our package of assistance. Our policy has
been and remains not to enter into a public debate on the particular
circumstances of these cases. We followed up on each complaint
directly with the families concerned and contacted a sample of
other affected families to ask whether and how we could further
improve our service.
28. However, much of the media criticism
did focus on general areas where our response could be improved
or on individual cases where we did not provide the level of consular
assistance rightly expected by British nationals in distress overseas.
The criticism from the media, and the relatively small number
of complaints that we have received either directly or via MPs
from members of the public have had a few common themes.
Jammed phone-lines
29. Many people who tried to ring the emergency
telephone number in the first few days of the crisis were unable
to get through. Others complained that when they did finally get
through, they were put on hold and then disconnected. At a very
traumatic time, this inability to report a loved one as missing
was unacceptable.
30. The major problem was, of course, the
sheer volume of calls. We had reviewed our emergency call-handling
arrangements following our experiences of the attacks on the World
Trade Centre. We had been advised by external consultants that
the new system, whereby calls for major crises overseas would
be transferred to the Metropolitan Police Casualty Bureau at Hendon,
would be sufficient to handle any such crisis. This was clearly
not the case.
31. The FCO Emergency Response Team—totalling
ten staff— was taking calls by 0830hrs GMT. However, within
one hour the number of calls exceeded what they could handle.
We made the decision to transfer calls to Hendon and the casualty
bureau was operational by 1500hrs. By then the volume was still
too large for the 40 police call-handlers; the Casualty Bureau
had to be expanded again on 26 December and then again on 27 December.
This took the Bureau to its maximum capacity, with over 300 police
officers, and our staff working on shifts round the clock.
32. Despite these efforts the system did
not cope. At its peak our telephone system was receiving 11,000
calls per hour. (The volume of "999" calls to the police
services in the UK is 25,000 for a 24 hour day. In addition to
the volume of legitimate calls, there were also a large number
of calls about other issues (eg Travel Advice, flights etc.).
Other FCO call centres, including the external call centre used
for travel advice, were also swamped despite increasing their
call handling capacity. The volume of calls in London also led
to posts being over-loaded with calls from the UK as well as from
the affected region.
33. We are already looking with the police
at ways to expand our call handling capacity, as well as at ways
in which we might overcome the technical difficulties of web-based
registration procedures. This would allow those people who cannot
get through on telephones to register details on the internet.
In any future incident we will make clear when publicising the
emergency number that it is purely for reporting missing persons.
We will advertise other numbers (eg for travel advice) immediately.
Poor information on FCO Web-site
34. The Independent article on 29 December
also referred to the lack of information on the FCO website, including
the lack of any facility to check as to whether British nationals
had been reported as safe and well. This is contrasted with the
service that was provided by some of the round the clock news
channels and web-sites.
35. In the past we have not gone down the
route of putting out information, the accuracy of which we have
not been able to check, on the FCO web-site. There is a real risk
that such a facility could either misinform worried relatives
or that it could be abused. As the Committee will know, one individual
is alleged to have used the information on the Sky web-site to
contact families of those missing, purporting to work for the
FCO and informing them that their relatives had been confirmed
dead. The police have also recently expressed concerns over this
information being misused for identity fraud.
36. Having said this, we are looking again
at whether such a facility would be helpful and feasible in future
crises. As a first step, we invited in the travel journalist,
Simon Calder, to put across some of his ideas on how to do this.
We also plan to work with other governments. For example, the
US consular service has developed a traveller registration scheme
which was tested during the tsunami.
No help with repatriation of bodies/repatriation
of injured
37. A number of press articles centred on
reports that, in the initial period after the tsunami, the FCO
refused to assist with the cost of repatriating British nationals
who had been killed or injured.
38. The FCO does not normally meet the cost
of repatriating the remains of British nationals who have died
abroad, or of medical evacuation of those who have been injured
abroad. The current arrangements whereby consular assistance work
is funded by a "consular premium" of £8.96 on a
standard adult passport would not allow for us to provide such
a comprehensive service. We expect and encourage British nationals
travelling abroad to be adequately insured.
39. An exception to this rule has been the
"Victims of Terrorism" package of assistance that I
announced on 18 September 2003. In light of the exceptional nature
of the tsunami tragedy, I made the decision on 29 December to
extend a version of this assistance package to the British victims
of the tsunami. This included meeting the cost of repatriation
of remains or medical evacuation where there was no travel insurance.
40. We will now look at whether we can draw
up a list of criteria which, being met, would lead to the immediate
introduction of an exceptional assistance package in a large scale
mass casualty incident. This would avoid the period of delay and
uncertainty that occurred following the tsunami.
Lack of immediate help on the ground or in searching
for missing relatives
41. Some press articles have focused on
instances in which families have said that they received little
or no help from the FCO.
42. As I wrote earlier in this memorandum,
I am confident that FCO staff did the best job that they could
under very difficult circumstances indeed. The chronology also
shows that we deployed trained officers quickly and in large numbers
to the affected areas.
43. Unfortunately the number of British
nationals affected by the tragedy over such a wide area did mean
that we were not able to provide the sort of level of assistance
in every case that we would have wanted to in less unusual circumstances.
There are also lessons to be learnt in terms of increasing the
visibility of those FCO staff who are on-site in the affected
areas.
44. As the Committee will see from the summary
sheet in Annex A, the actual number of separate cases of this
kind upon which the media focused was, given the scale of the
tragedy, relatively small. However, I fully appreciate that this
is of little comfort to those whom we let down. I have apologised,
both publicly and in private, to those families and victims who
did not receive the level of service they should have done. In
all these cases we have worked hard to address their remaining
concerns and offer any assistance that we properly can. I, FCO
Ministers and officials have made ourselves available to see bereaved
families.
Delay in releasing casualty figures
45. Some newspapers criticised our decision
not to release at an earlier stage figures of those missing. I
stand by that decision. In releasing what figures we had, we struck
a balance between providing the earliest possible information
and ensuring that any figures given out were as accurate and reliable
as possible.
46. Our previous experience of major disasters
has been that to release early totals of those reported missing
can create unnecessary alarm and panic. EU governments who did
take this approach and announced very high initial estimates of
casualties were subsequently criticised for so doing.
47. Along with the Secretary of State for
International Development, I wrote to all Members of Parliament
on 31 December confirming that 34 British nationals were known
to have died in the tsunami but indicating that I believed that
this number would rise. I announced the initial figure of the
Category One missing (ie those highly likely to be involved in
the tsunami) on 3 January. This was the first time that the Metropolitan
Police had had the opportunity to begin to categorise the many
thousands of missing persons reports that they had received. The
figure I released on 3 January was of 159 Category One missing
people in addition to 40 confirmed dead. The daily totals for
all categories of missing have been published on the FCO web-site
since 7 January. As of 8 March, the figure of Category One missing
was 190 people.
Longer term issues: Death Registrations/Length
of time taken to identify or repatriate victims
48. As the Committee will be aware, from
mid-January onwards the focus of media criticism shifted onto
longer term issues such as registering the death of those missing
in the Tsunami and the Disaster Victim Identification (DVI) process.
49. In the case of death registration, the
FCO was already co-ordinating a Whitehall- wide solution to this
problem. As I mentioned earlier in this letter, Douglas Alexander
announced on 24 January new procedures with regard to registering
the death of those missing in the tsunami.
50. The DVI process in both Thailand and
Sri Lanka is ongoing. The UK has the largest diplomatic and police
teams in Phuket who are making an outstanding contribution to
the international effort in conditions which remain extremely
difficult. Our teams in the UK and in the affected regions, together
with international colleagues, have identified and successfully
repatriated the remains of 50 British nationals to the UK. The
majority of the other 31 people who we have been able to confirm
to have died have been cremated locally, repatriated to other
countries or are awaiting instructions from their next of kin..
51. We are under no illusions that the DVI
process will be quick or easy. The scale of the challenge facing
the international identification teams is unprecedented, both
in numbers of those dead and in the complexity of working with
multiple nationalities over many locations. DNA profiling and
matching is a painstaking and lengthy process, especially where
bodies are in a poor state. But we and the international community
are convinced that we must stick with the DVI process. It is a
tried and tested method that has shown itself to be sufficiently
robust to avoid the huge distress that would be caused by misidentification.
The West London Coroner, who is handling all the tsunami victim
inquests, supports the rigorous DVI process and believes it significantly
reduces the risk of misidentification and thereby enables victims'
remains to be released to families quickly after their repatriation
to the UK.
TRIBUTES
52. As with the criticism and complaints
regarding the FCO's response, the vast majority of the tributes
that we received are from individuals. I have copied extracts
from a selection of these tributes below. These are drawn only
from the tributes received by the Tsunami Crisis Unit in London.
Our posts overseas received many letters directly. Copies of these
are being sent back to London but had not been received in time
for inclusion in this letter. I have indicated where they are
on behalf of a particular organisation. In all other instances,
I have removed personal information that might identify the sender.
British Red Cross
"All of us in the British Red Cross Crisis
Support Team have been enormously impressed with the level of
professionalism, dedication and sensitivity the staff working
in the Crisis Teams in Bangkok and Phuket have shown over the
last few weeks. The combination of the incredible scale of the
need and devastation, together with the harsh judgements within
the parts of the media could have impacted on the Teams' effectiveness
and morale. However, this has not at any time been the case. Indeed,
it seemed to us that the individuals in both teams were able to
draw together effectively and efficiently to deliver phenomenal
services with dignity, thought and respect.
We would be grateful if you would pass on our
thanks and appreciation to all involved in working in the Crisis
Teams. We have felt privileged to be part of the response with
the FCO and hope that if this has been useful, we would be considered
to support the FCO again."
Association of Independent Travel Operators
"Please convey our gratitude to all those
who have been working flat out since the tsunami struck. We know
the pressure that you have all been under, and we know that the
FCO has been doing its best to assist and co-ordinate in the best
way possible during this dreadful unprecedented disaster situation."
Disaster Action
"I am writing to let you know what a good
facility Disaster Action feels that the FCO website is offering
at the present time (1 February). It is very helpful that the
most difficult issues in terms of the response are being openly
addressed. Do please pass on our comments to those responsible
for maintaining and developing the site."
Individual—Thailand
"The support we have received from public
servants throughout has been outstanding. From the moment we landed
in Thailand, we were looked after and the Foreign Office staff
provided reliable information and good advice. They were having
to carry out the difficult task of telling friends and family
bad news about people who had disappeared. They did this with
sensitivity without giving people false hope.
It made me extremely angry to read the criticisms
that appeared in the press. I don't believe that my experience
was untypical and I would be really grateful if you could pass
on my thanks. Doing a difficult task like this, on two hours sleep
a night is hard enough—doing it well and with sensitivity
is truly remarkable"
Letter to Mail on Sunday—Sri Lanka
"My family were staying in a hotel in Sri
Lanka when the tsunami struck but our dealings with the British
representatives were very different from those of .
We were evacuated to a special centre where we were well cared
for. The next day Foreign Office and High Commission staff visited
the centre, took a roll call and helped us contact loved ones
in Britain. Both were helpful and sympathetic to us all."
Healthcare Professional—Thailand
"As you know, the
was a receiving centre for some of those involved in the recent
Asian Tsunami. We had patients of many nationalities, and had
a greater than usual contact with the staff of foreign embassies,
one of the more conscientious legations being that of the UK.
I wish to commend Ambassador Fall and his staff
for the tireless work and unceasing effort they put in during
this very stressful time. Without doubt the staff of the British
Embassy gave an exceptional service to the British subjects at
this hospital".
Individual—Sri Lanka (quoted in Daily Mail)
"We would like to thank the British High
Commissioner of Sri Lanka and his wife, who personally did so
much for us".
Individual—Thailand
"I would like to commend the members of
staff both at the Embassy at Bangkok and the team in Phuket Town
for the way they assisted my sister and me during a very difficult
time. They were entirely professional, courteous and sensitive
to our needs above and beyond normal duty requirements, when they
themselves were under unimaginable stress.
I implore you to make it known to these individuals
just how much my family and I owe to them for their support and
guidance over our stay in Thailand. I am led to believe that the
FCO experienced some unflattering media attention back in the
UK, and I feel it is important to record our thanks from somebody
who was in this situation."
Individual—Sri Lanka
"I also wanted to thank you and your team,
particularly for all of the help
and support you gave us. Particularly from my point of view, having
around was invaluable. I know we would not have managed as well
as we did without her constant support (and patience!)."
Individual—Thailand
"I thought I must contact the Embassy to
thanks the staff and volunteers for the help they offered my wife
and I after the tsunami. We visited the Embassy in Bangkok on
27 December after losing our belongings in
and were treated with great humanity and sensitivity by all the
staff and volunteers. My wife, an
citizen, will never forget the kindness she was shown on that
day and subsequently. Volunteers such as
and , parents of one of the
Embassy staff were incredibly kind to us and made us feel "at
home" in Bangkok after the terrible events of Boxing Day.
In conclusion, I would like to offer my sincere
thanks for the kindness and sympathy we received at the Embassy
and also the highly efficient response of the staff in what was
a very difficult time".
Individual—Sri Lanka
"Thanks for all your help recently. The
assistance you arranged for us was fantastic."
Individual—Thailand
"May I take this opportunity to thank you
personally for all your help and support during a very difficult
and emotional time in the search for my ".
Individual—Thailand
"I am writing to express my thanks to all
the British Embassy, Bangkok, officials down in Phuket and their
team of volunteers. They were extremely sympathetic and helpful
despite working in difficult conditions.
The staff at the Embassy in Bangkok were most
helpful and arranged for us to fly out on a specially chartered
British Airways flight. I am most grateful for this".
Individual—Thailand
"This email comes to thank the Foreign
Office for arranging our visit to Thailand to be reunited with
our son .
We would also like to mention the staff at the
British Embassy in Bangkok. They were terrific, arranging our
accommodation and transport, everything went like clockwork. Two
of the staff met us at the airport on our departure to enquire
how was and had our stay been
satisfactory".
Individual—Andaman Islands
"On behalf of my family may I thank you
and everyone at the FCO for all your help in trying to trace .
Thank you for the telephone calls and e-mails
updating us on any information you had and asking for any leads
as to his whereabouts we were able to give. With all the thousands
of people missing it was very reassuring to know that the "authorities"
were also looking for ."
Individual—Thailand
"I would like to say thank you to the British
Government and the Foreign Office amongst many other people for
the repatriation of my son to the UK and the help that we have
received since the day of the Tsunami."
LESSONS LEARNED
53. As with any major crisis of this kind,
there are many lessons for the FCO to learn both in terms of what
went wrong and what went right. We have conducted a thorough internal
lessons-learned exercise in consultation with our overseas posts
and with the other government and non-government partners with
whom we have been working. The results of that exercise are being
finalised. I will be happy to share them with the Committee. Some
of the key points that have emerged include:
Training
— All Senior Management Service (SMS)
officers, together with heads of consular sections and Senior
Management Officers should receive basic training in setting up
and operating emergency offices and how to deal with emotional
survivors.
— Consular and crisis training to all
staff going on overseas postings. A one day crisis management
course had already been successfully piloted prior to the tsunami.
This will be made available to all Heads of Mission and Deputy
Heads of Mission.
Guidance:
— FCO to produce a short step by step
guide on setting up a local emergency office.
— FCO to produce guidance on consular
casework procedures.
Rapid Deployment Teams (RDTs)
— Set up and train regional RDTs in
some of our larger and more distant posts.
— Consider increasing the number of
RDT teams on standby (possibly two teams at a time instead of
one as now).
— All RDTs (regional as well as London)
to include a Press Officer deployable from London if necessary.
— All RDTs to have full communications
and technical kit. And to include a communications technician.
— FCO services to hold a stock of at
least 20 laptops preloaded with Firecrest for immediate deployment
to posts.
Casework
— Establish FCO standby casework teams—perhaps
paid a retainer to be on call to provide casework backup in London
or abroad in a major crisis.
Call handling
— Explore urgently with the police
ways of expanding the capacity of the Casualty Bureau, to other
forces through the use of CASWEB.
— Explore urgently a web-based registration
process.
Other police issues
— Establish clear guidelines for handling
FLOs and FCO liaison, including agreement that FLOs be appointed
to families of all confirmed dead and all those in Police Category
1.
— Agree that FLO liaison officers be
embedded in the FCO from the start;
— Agree a common Metropolitan Police
Service/FCO database to be used by police, FCO and posts.
— Set clear guidelines over administrative
issues related to police deployment overseas.
Assistance packages
— FCO to prepare in advance a list
of criteria which, being met, would lead to the immediate introduction
of an exceptional assistance package.
NGO deployment
— Formalise standing arrangements with
the British Red Cross and SOS International for immediate deployment
in a major crisis.
— Formalise standing arrangement for
multi-agency reception centres at UK airports.
Action for Posts
— Posts to review urgently the arrangements
in their emergency plans to make best use of RDT teams. RDT members
themselves need to be clear how they can best be used.
— Set out in emergency plans an agreed
maximum period of deployment before staff working in crisis situations
are rotated.
— Posts to identify sources of local
mobile phones with global roaming facilities to be provided immediately
by posts operating emergency offices.
— Posts should make advance arrangements
on how they would set up access to emergency funds as quickly
as possible. This might include having large amounts of cash available
or arrangements to set up bank accounts extremely quickly.
— Put in place structures for handling
offers of help from organisations or individuals. Include these
also in post emergency plans.
— Emergency plans also to include guidelines
for involvement of local British community volunteers.
— Agree with our EU partners the basic
parameters for future co-operation and co-ordination in major
disasters to avoid unnecessary local debate on each occasion.
54. We had also already invited the National
Audit Office to carry out a review of FCO consular assistance
work world-wide. The last such review was in 1992. The NAO has
agreed that they will now look closely at our response to the
tsunami crisis as part of that review. We expect the NAO to present
their findings to the Public Accounts Committee this summer.
55. The EU held a crisis managers' meeting
on 8 February to discuss how existing co-ordination procedures
had worked during the tsunami. There was also a meeting on 23
to 25 February at which the Consular Directors from five countries
(US, Canada, UK, Australia and New Zealand) discussed their response
to the tsunami. Both of these meetings have produced ideas for
increased governmental co-operation and have highlighted measures
which have been a particular success for one country and which
other governments may wish to emulate. For example, many of the
EU countries are keen to set up systems similar to our RDT teams.
In turn, we are looking at a new US system of on-line traveller
registration.
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