International

Uncle locates toddler who survived tsunami

BANGKOK, DEC. 28. Dozens of parents desperate to find missing children after the tsunami battered southern Thailand turned up at a local hospital hoping that an unidentified two-year-old boy was theirs. They all left disappointed — except his Swedish uncle.

A man who identified himself as Jim, said today that he found his nephew, Hannes Bergstroem, by looking on the Web. "When I saw Hannes on the Internet, I booked an air ticket to come here in less than five hours," said Jim, who rushed to the Phuket International Hospital from Chonburi, hours away from Phuket, on Monday night. "This is a miracle, the biggest thing that could happen."

Jim said that five relatives from Goteborg were on a month's vacation in Thailand when the tsunami struck, including Hannes' father and mother — she is missing, as is the boy's grandmother, the Swedish newspaper, Aftonbladet, reported. They spent their last days in Khao Lak, where surging waves swept away hundreds of tourists and trapped people inside flooded buildings.

Hospital staff and The Phuket Gazette put pictures of Hannes — a blond-haired boy with red spots all over his face from mosquito bites — on the hospital website. The staff said that he was found sitting on a road not far from the town of Khao Lak.

— AP

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