2000 Britons possibly DEAD!!!!!
2000 Britons possibly DEAD!!!!!
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Discussion

beaconbouy

Original Poster:

321 posts

248 months

Friday 7th January 2005
quotequote all
Terrible as many as 2000 Britons could now have been killed!!!!

http://channels.aolsvc.co.uk/news/article.adp?id=20050107143109990009

That is 2400 approx, all now missing IMO should be presumed dead.

>>> Edited by beaconbouy on Friday 7th January 20:46

mxdi

13,993 posts

265 months

Friday 7th January 2005
quotequote all
2000 or 200?

vixpy1

42,687 posts

280 months

Friday 7th January 2005
quotequote all
The official total of those presumed dead is 440.

turbobloke

112,399 posts

276 months

Friday 7th January 2005
quotequote all
Reports in the media, and of course they only ever tell the absolute truth very scrupulously, say travel agents put the number of brits staying in affected countries at 4000 and most were at beach resorts. They argue that the number of fatalities has been seriously downplayed to avoid anger at Bliar's reluctance to cut short his holiday (allegedly on health grounds but even so...) and it will be allowed to creep up over the next few days to a figure in the thousands in a bid to offset a major outcry at the mis-handling of this catastrophe by our catastrophe of a government. All we can do is wait and see.

v15ben

16,021 posts

257 months

Friday 7th January 2005
quotequote all
beaconbouy said:


That is 2400 approx, all now missing IMO should be presumed dead.



It's a terrible situation but I also agree that this should fairly well be the case now.
Hopefully, if PHers can donate to charity to help rebuild lives and nations, I think we should! This is a big chance for the whole world to act IMO.

beaconbouy

Original Poster:

321 posts

248 months

Friday 7th January 2005
quotequote all
v15ben said:
I would think 200, the FO said there were only around 2000 out there at the time IIRC.


The fact is the entire region is very popular with British travellers, and this gov't is very cautious with putting out "some" statments. Its winter here, hot there so no suprise if the death toll is horrifically high.

turbobloke

112,399 posts

276 months

Friday 7th January 2005
quotequote all
vixpy1 said:
The official total of those presumed dead is 440.
Agreed vixpy1, but officially Blunderkit didn't fast track any visas and Bliar's official judgement was to say Blunderkit would be fully vindicated...

FourWheelDrift

91,021 posts

300 months

Friday 7th January 2005
quotequote all
49 Britons had been confirmed dead plus 391 unaccounted for.

Don't read crap like AOL news.

Iceman82

1,311 posts

252 months

Friday 7th January 2005
quotequote all
It really is awful that we can't be sure how many people have actually lost their lives. I can't begin to understand how the families left at home, worrying about their loved ones, must feel.

>> Edited by Iceman82 on Friday 7th January 21:09

vixpy1

42,687 posts

280 months

Friday 7th January 2005
quotequote all
FourWheelDrift said:
49 Britons had been confirmed dead plus 391 unaccounted for.

Don't read crap like AOL news.


Agreed.

Ballistic Banana

14,704 posts

283 months

Friday 7th January 2005
quotequote all
Unfortunatly it wouldnt surprise me if it was in the 1000's. Surely there is as many Brits over there as the Swedish who have lost thousands of People.

I just hope my thoughts are wrong

BB

off_again

13,904 posts

250 months

Friday 7th January 2005
quotequote all
Got to deal with facts not fiction. Unless there is direct evidence of someone missing, you cannot (and shouldnt) include them in the figures. Since an awful lot of people will have been there without specific travel arrangements, its going to take an awfully long time to work out exactly who was there and who wasnt - in fact its unlikely they will ever get to the bottom of it.

So yes, the figures will creep up. But it is better that way (and providing genuine evidence of missing / dead to the relatives and friends) rather than subjective, misleading and un-informed speculative numbers.

Seriously O/T : strangely in such circumstances like these, many people are simply just never found. Either too disturbed or just take advantage of the situation. They simply disappear, never to be seen again - though they are still alive but listed as missing. I remember there was one chap from the Kings Cross fire who did this - just vanished. No body, no nothing - in fact did a runner using the disaster as a covering for his tracks..... subsequently identified through dental records years after the event!!!! So missing doesnt always mean dead.... strange but true.

D_Mike

5,301 posts

256 months

Friday 7th January 2005
quotequote all
And the overall death toll is in the hundreds of thousands. Rather reculiar that so many of the headlines concern the number of our nationals dead/missing.

jacobyte

4,761 posts

258 months

Friday 7th January 2005
quotequote all
To be quite frank, we shouldn't be fussed exactly how many Britons have lost their lives; every single life lost is an equal tragedy. The truth is that there has been a terrible natural disaster and a significant proportion of the planet has been affected through death, loss and destruction.

We don't need to quote numbers and statistics as if it's a scoreboard in a game. It just adds to the mind-numbing media sesationalism.

chrisgr31

14,057 posts

271 months

Saturday 8th January 2005
quotequote all
FourWheelDrift said:
49 Britons had been confirmed dead plus 391 unaccounted for.

Don't read crap like AOL news.


Ah but thats because of the way they are been counted. Those missing aren;t counted as missing until they have missed their flight home, or onward to someone else.

Spin, and more spin springs to mind.

Want to bet the nubers missing don't escalate dramatically over the coming weeks?

john_p

7,073 posts

266 months

Saturday 8th January 2005
quotequote all
I think there is something dodgy going on with the death and missing figures. The ratio of confirmed dead to missing seems a lot lower for the UK figures than for say the USA, who had a similar amount dead but 10x as many missing.

Since I am aware of a few people who are confirmed dead but not included in the 51 death figure, I am taking any government figures with a LARGE pinch of salt.

cptsideways

13,735 posts

268 months

Saturday 8th January 2005
quotequote all
The figure will be huge, into the 1000's sadly is my expectation.

Something is seriously wrong with our governments spin on this matter, they are only counting those bodies identified, my guess for every body found they'll be 5-10 unidentified or never found.

There are many many thousands of independent travellers in the region & they are not counting them.

beano500

20,854 posts

291 months

Saturday 8th January 2005
quotequote all
The figures are big - there's no denying.

I am a lucky person having been on a Maldivian island on Boxing Day, wondering why I was wading through water when I was at the very highest point on the land! (So this is not meant as some sort of gratuitous verbal grenade)

BUT.

Even if it's 440 Brits...

a) that pales into insignificance in relation to all the other nationalities that are suffering and continue to struggle on

b) about that number perish on UK roads over the course of an average 6 WEEKS!!!

Think about it!

james_j

3,996 posts

271 months

Saturday 8th January 2005
quotequote all
beano500 said:
The figures are big - there's no denying.

...about that number perish on UK roads over the course of an average 6 WEEKS!!!

Think about it!


In the U.K about 120,000 die each year from cigatette-related illnesses - entirely legal!

john_p

7,073 posts

266 months

Saturday 8th January 2005
quotequote all
OK have just made some more enquiries.

I now know of 3 people who died in the disaster. They had a relative fly out to identify them (all related). Their bodies have been returned to the UK.

They are not on the official death lists.

What is going on?