ID-ing the Dead

It's an ugly job, but somebody's got to do it. With choking humidity and soaring temperatures, the race is on to identify foreign victims of the massive tsunami in Thailand before the risk of disease becomes so great they have to be cremated. With many of the bodies washing up on local shores blackened and disfigured to the point they can no longer be identified, tracking deceased loved ones isn't as simple as pulling back a sheet at one of the area's impromptu morgues. A number of countries, including Germany, are sending forensics experts to finish the grim job, a German public broadcaster reports. Among the international workers are 25 experts from the "Identification Commission" of the Federal Office of Criminal Investigation. It's the same team that helped put names to charred or crushed bodies at the spectacular accident at the Ramstein Air Show in 1988 and the deadly high-speed rail crash in Eschede in 1988. The group will sort through bodies looking for special physical characteristics -- like birth marks or tattoos -- to help identify victims quickly. For others, it will take DNA samples -- a method that has help track the identity of every dead person the team has tested in the past decade. (2:06 p.m. CET)

Animal Instincts

Natural conservation officials in Sri Lanka have been a bit flummoxed this week. After Sunday's massive tsunami, the region is oversaturated with bodies of dead humans, but so far rescuers haven't come across the bodies of any animals. "There are no dead elephants, not even a dead hare or rabbit," said H.D. Ratnayake, deputy director of the national wildlife department. "I think animals can sense disaster. They have a sixth sense. They know when things are happening." The waves set off by the 9 magnitude earthquake crashed at least three kilometers into Yala National Park, a natural preserve which is home to hundreds of wild elephants and leopards.

Sea mammals like whales and dolphins also appear able to sense tsunamis, and scientists believe they dove deep beneath the ocean surface to avoid harm. But coral reef dwellers in shallow waters appear to have fared far worse in the catastrophe. Michael Keogh, a marine biologist at the University of Melbourne said he thought the damage to the delicate reef ecosystems would be tremendous. And because they only grow by a half-centimeter annually, it could take years for them to recover. (11:30 a.m. CET)

The Year in Review: Tragedy in Beslan

On Sept. 1, a troop of 32 terrorists stormed School No. 1 in Beslan, North Ossetia, taking more than 1,300 hostages. It was the first day of school, the so-called "Day of Knowledge," when parents join their kids in the classroom. The terrorists quickly rounded up children and parents, pointed machine guns at them, and forced them to group inside the school's gymnasium. They also videotaped the whole drama.

Meanwhile, police entrenched themselves in their offices and didn't want to take responsibility for what was happening -- after all, deployments against terrorists still weren't something they had learned to deal with. Not even after the incidents of June 22, when, just a few kilometers away, in Ingushetiya, several hundred armed Islamic fundamentalists stormed local barracks and the Interior Ministry, killing 98 people including the interior minister.

The warning signs were there -- not of a specific attack, but of the region's vulnerability. The people of North Ossetia have maintained loyal ties to Russia since the times of Catherine the Great. Russian reinforcement troops for Chechnya are also stationed there, making it a popular target for fundamental Islamists. Since 1999, 67 people have been killed in the capital city of Vladikavkaz and more than 300 injured. And a suicide attack on a military hospital in the northeastern city of Mosdok killed at least 50 people and injured 82 in August 2003. With corruption rampant and an underpaid police force, many in Ossetia feel helpless against the threat of terror. In many cases, the people here have even attempted to arm themselves -- indeed, armed fathers circled the Beslan school where their children had been taken hostage in a desperate (and failed) bid to save them.

On the second day, Ingushetiva's former president, who had been brought in to handle negotiations, succeeded in securing the release of 27 people, including several infants. But that single gesture aside, they soon realized that these terrorists were for more barbaric than their predecessors the year before in a Moscow theater, who allowed a doctor in to examine the children. They threatened to kill any doctors who entered the school and, despite the unbearable heat, refused to give anyone anything to drink. The last sip some children had before they died was of their own urine.

Some politicians in the Kremlin's crisis center even proposed a deal with the terrorists that would have included negotiations on atonomy for Chechnya. The deal also would have included a step-by-step pull-out of Russian troops. But the negotiations, which would have required a 180-degree turnabout in Kremlin policy, didn't go anywhere. Neither did the terrorists.

Just after 1 p.m. on Sept. 3, a bomb inside the school exploded randomly, killing or seriously injuring many hostages. Survivors began to flee, and as they did the terrorists turned their guns on them. Within minutes, the school had turned into a battlefield, with anti-terror troops entering and firing on the terrorists. Bombs continued to go off, and eventually the roof collapsed. It was a scene of pure horror. The oldest hostage to survive, 84-year-old Saurbek Gutiyev, was a soldier in 1942-3 in the notoriously gruesome Battle of Stalingrad. "The 160 days in Stalingrad," he now says, "were nothing compared to the three days in the gymnasium."