Print pros: Police Identification Bureau Sergeants Hsia Kai-keung and Au Suk-yee.

Two Police Identification Bureau officers helped Interpol confirm the identities of 15 tsunami victims in Phuket in a month, by fingerprints.

Of them, nine were Hong Kong residents of Canadian, French, German, British and Chinese nationality. The other six were Canadian, German and Swedish nationals.

At Interpol's request, the bureau sent Sergeant Hsia Kai-keung and Woman Sergeant Au Suk-yee to the Thai Tsunami Victim Identification Information Management Centre in Phuket from February 13 to March 13. They handled 80 files containing over 400 finger and palm prints of victims.

Between December 31, when the centre was set up, and March 13, the facility identified 800-plus victims, 84 by fingerprints.

Mr Hsia said: "We are very pleased that in a matter of one month we made 15 positive identifications, which represents nearly 18% of the total. We were just one team out of 13 working at the centre, so our results are quite outstanding."

International effort

They worked at a computer workstation on shifts of either 8am to 3pm, or 3pm to 9pm, alongside fingerprint experts from Germany, Austria, France, Spain, Norway, Portugal, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and Brunei.

They input fingerprints into the computer and then proceeded with the tedious job of making comparisons with a long list of "candidates".

Mr Hsia said it was a tough job as they could only process a few files each day, containing victims' DNA, dental and fingerprint information.

"Our job was not as simple as it might sound. A lot of work had to be done before fingerprints were input into the computer. Very often a file contained more than one fingerprint, and we handled a file containing more than 30 finger and palm prints. And the 'candidate list' output by the computer was usually rather long. We came across a list containing over 130 'candidates'."

Tough job

The poor quality of fingerprints made their job more difficult, he added.

"Fingerprints taken after a long lapse of time or taken from a swollen body are naturally less than satisfactory which brings you extra work and difficulty for comparison."

Miss Au said that they also had to input and search for palm prints on the computer - a job they have never done in Hong Kong.

"On our last two days in Phuket, we were asked by the manager to do quality control checking work for fingerprints input by other countries' experts. I think this was a recognition of the overall high standard and quality of our work at the centre," Miss Au said.

"It was a valuable experience for us to have worked side by side with fingerprint experts from other countries and exchange experience and ideas with them. I think our job standard is world-class, compared with many other countries."