Foreign dead: The realisation is dawning in Scandinavian countries that most of the Europeans missing after the south Asian tsunami are from Sweden and Norway.
Of 3,500 foreigners unaccounted for, around 1,500 were from Sweden, 440 from Norway and 200 from Finland.
SAS, half-owned by Sweden, Denmark and Norway, allocated 15 aircraft yesterday to fly home stranded Nordic tourists as quickly as possible.
More than 3,000 people may have died at Khao Lak alone, a Thai beach resort north of Phuket island especially popular with Scandinavians and Germans. By Wednesday, 1,200 bodies had been recovered there.
Apart from the Scandinavians, authorities had lost track of over 200 Czechs, 188 Israelis, 100 Germans and 100 Italians holidaying across the region.
Last night the official British death toll stood at 26, according to the Foreign Office: 20 killed in Thailand, three in Sri Lanka and three in the Maldives.
However, a British embassy official in Phuket said the death toll was likely to rise "steeply" in the coming days as the bodies of Westerners were identified.
One of the most heartbreaking stories to emerge from the disaster was that of a woman who lost her two young sons and her partner in the disaster, just a day after getting engaged.
Ms Sharon Howard (37), of Hayle, Cornwall, was on holiday in Thailand with her sons, Taylor, six, and eight-year-old Mason, and her boyfriend Mr David Page (44).
Taylor was killed, and Mason and Mr Page are missing, presumed dead, after the tsunami struck their hotel in Khao-Lak Phang-Nga in southern Thailand.
Ms Howard suffered head injuries and is recovering in hospital in the Thai capital, Bangkok.
Mr Page, a commercial deep sea diver, had proposed to her on Christmas Day.
Reuters