Tsunami relief efforts: US helicopter crashed

Thailand is to exhume hundreds buried after the Indian Ocean &to=http:// english.pravda.ru/accidents/21/97/385/14779_ADRA.html ' target=_blank>tsunami.

It said more than 600 hastily buried bodies would have to be exhumed for fuller forensic tests. More than 2000 of the country's 5303 known dead have yet to be identified. Even the most basic identification of many corpses as Thai or foreigner needed to be checked again, officials said on Monday.

A senior official at the national disaster centre on Phuket island, just off Phang Nga, said the identification of the race of a dead person was often done only visually. "From now on, when we say we can identify them, we must know their names and have some sort of document to verify their identification," said the official, reports Al-Jazeera News.

According to the Times of India, a &to=http:// english.pravda.ru/usa/2002/03/04/26764.html ' target=_blank>US helicopter on a tsunami relief mission crashed on Monday in Indonesia, injuring two servicemen and briefly suspending operations, while strong aftershocks and security concerns provided more challenges for aid workers two weeks after the killer waves hit.

Millions of people are homeless and bodies were still being pulled from collapsed buildings after the December 26 tsunami killed more than 150,000 people across 11 countries.