On Jan, 15~(th), Bangkok airport sees two black trunks board a plane to Beijing, China, together with four forensic experts from the Beijing Genomics Institute (BGI) under CAS. What in the trunks is a batch of very special "baggage" - 100 DMA samples collected from remains of the tsunami victims found in Southern Thailand and to be tested in BGI. On 26~(th) Dec. 2004, the devastating tsunami triggered by an 8.9 scale earthquake threw the whole world in shock. Tens of thousands of people from over 30 countries lost their lives and thousands were reported missing. According to the situation reports issued by the World Health Organization on Feb. 1~(st), nearly 150,000 deaths were confirmed, and almost the same number of missing reported. The identities and origins of many victims are still unknown, especially in southern Thailand, where the remains, which were soaked in sea water and insolated, are badly decomposed because of the hot and humid weather.
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