South-Asian tsunami

Your Jan 8 Editorial1 states that "mortality is an insensitive measure of health risk", but it is a sensitive issue for some. In The Nation, Bangkok's independent English newspaper, on Jan 5, the tsunami-related fatalities in Thailand were reported as 5246 Thai nationals and 90 Burmese nationals. However, in the same newspaper, there was an article entitled "Hundreds of Burmese dead", which was based on information collected from the Human Rights Education Institution of Burma.2 According to the article, more than 500 Burmese migrant workers died and at least 2500 went missing in the tsunami. However, most went unrecorded and unreported in Thailand's official death toll. The Burmese embassy also seemed to be indifferent to these workers, since most of them migrated into Thailand illegally.