BANDA ACEH, Indonesia - INTERPOL Secretary General Ronald K. Noble has completed a three-country tour of the southeast Asian region severely struck by the tsunami, seeking ways to enhance victim identification efforts and international police co-operation in response to the disaster.

Mr Noble was invited by the police chiefs from Sri Lanka, the Maldives and Indonesia. He had already travelled to tsunami affected areas in Thailand on 31 December 2004.

At the request of the concerned countries, INTERPOL dispatched Incident Response Teams to Thailand, Sri Lanka and Indonesia. Planning is also under way for a disaster victim identification (DVI) team to go to the Maldives. At this stage INTERPOL's aim is to help co-ordinate efforts by international DVI teams and to determine the necessary communications and logistics support to ensure the accurate identification of victims.

'Neither INTERPOL nor the world had a precedent for how to respond to an international disaster of this magnitude, but it was immediately evident that INTERPOL member countries' DVI teams and INTERPOL's own Incident Response Teams, database expertise and global communications system would be needed to help co-ordinate the police response worldwide,' Mr Noble said.

The Secretary General praised the police, the DVI teams and the INTERPOL Incident Response Teams currently working in the affected countries for their initial response to the disaster and their dedication in helping to identify victims.

As a result of the Secretary General's current trip:

• an INTERPOL Incident Response team has been sent to Sri Lanka to put in place an emergency communications and logistics support centre for the DVI teams from seven countries currently working there
  
  
• INTERPOL has alerted its member countries that the Maldives needs DVI support to identify the decomposed bodies washing ashore on a daily basis
  
  
• Indonesia has agreed to co-ordinate all missing persons information of non-Indonesian nationals with INTERPOL's emergency logistics and communications centre in Phuket, Thailand
  
  
• INTERPOL will host a meeting in Thailand, at which Indonesia, the Maldives, Sri Lanka and Thailand will be able to discuss ways to maintain a co-ordinated process for the identification of missing persons.

'When a disaster strikes, the instinct and training of police everywhere is to respond immediately - to go to the scene and provide emergency services,' Mr Noble said. 'However, we now must make certain that key personnel, especially DVI teams from INTERPOL member countries and INTERPOL Incident Response Teams, will be available to rotate in and out of the affected countries as required during the many months of work that lie ahead.'

'Later, when the emergency status for this disaster has passed, the police community must candidly identify voids and weaknesses in the existing structures and systems exposed by this disaster, so we can provide a faster and better response when the next disaster strikes.'