European tsunami deaths feared in thousands

STOCKHOLM - Sweden said on Thursday more than 1000 Swedes may have been killed in the Asian tsunami, the worst death toll for any foreign country.

Some 5000 foreign tourists, mostly Europeans, were still missing four days after the wall of water hit coasts and devastated beach resorts round the Indian Ocean. Germany said more than 1000 of its citizens were still missing.

As relatives combed Asian beaches in search of missing loved ones and police tried to identify the dead, newspapers, politicians and people across Scandinavia fumed at what they said was the slow response of their governments to the crisis.

Flags were to fly at half-mast in Sweden, Norway and Finland on January 1 while New Year's Eve events were being toned down.

"It is clear to everyone that the number of casualties will be in the hundreds. In the worst case the number could rise over 1000," Swedish Prime Minister Goran Persson said. Sweden is a small country and it is a huge number of dead."

Forty-four had been confirmed killed, up from six, he said.

A Swedish Foreign Ministry official said the first bodies might be brought back this weekend. As Sweden lacked coffins, it would appeal to United Nations agencies for more, the official said.

Among foreign states, Sweden fears being hardest hit as its people have flocked for years to Thailand to escape long, cold winters. Officials have raised the figure of missing to 2500 from 1500.

More than 125,000 people in Indonesia, India, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Malaysia and other countries as far away as Africa have been listed as killed.

Tourists from Australia, Canada, Japan, Singapore, South Africa and South Korea were also among the dead.

Nearly 700 Italians, 462 Norwegians, 419 Danes, 263 Finns, 200 Czechs and 294 Singaporean tourists are among those reported missing.

In Norway, where 21 nationals are confirmed dead, Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik said many of the 462 missing in the tsunami may be dead.

"We have to be prepared that many of those are dead," he told Norwegian NRK radio, referring to the missing Norwegians.

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has said hundreds of his countrymen probably died in the disaster.

A deputy foreign minister said on Thursday 33 Germans were confirmed dead, while more than 1000 were missing.

Newspapers across Scandinavia fired off editorials accusing the region's leaders of being too slow to respond to the initial disaster and to send out help to their countrymen. Swedish tabloids were the harshest.

"She went to the theatre," Aftonbladet said, referring to Foreign Minister Laila Freivalds.

It said she did not go to her office for 30 hours. Freivalds said she had been contactable all the time on her mobile phone.

The government has acknowledged it reacted slowly in the early stages, but said no one knew how big the disaster was.

Leading Norwegian daily Aftenposten said there was "good reason to ask whether it took too long for governments in Denmark, Sweden and Norway" to decide to help their citizens.

In Denmark, one opposition party demanded a special meeting of parliament's foreign affairs committee while the Social Democratic opposition leader Mogens Lykketoft criticised the government for not sending out a disaster management team.

Former Finnish Finance Minister Sauli Niinisto, who saved himself and his two sons by clinging to a lamppost for two hours, was critical of his government for failing to hold an emergency meeting on the disaster.

"I was left with the feeling no one wanted us anywhere," he told a TV talk show after his ordeal in Khao Lak, the worst hit Thai beach, where he hurt his leg saving a Swedish child.

Finnish tabloids painted their front covers black and showed photographs of the missing.

"Where are they?" they questioned. Persson said the disaster would cast a long shadow.

"There will be many empty chairs in school classrooms and offices, and the uncertainty will go on for a long time."

- REUTERS