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Health Services chief clarifies discrepancy regarding death toll figures
Health Services Director General Dr Anil Jaasinghe has said the identification of those killed in the Easter Sunday explosions were made difficult due to the fact that some of the bodies were badly damaged.
He explained that damage to bodies of those killed in the explosions at the churches was less than those who died in the explosions at hotels, which was due to the fact that in the churches the shockwaves were able to break through the roof, while at the hotels the shockwaves had no outlet due to the reinforced concrete used to build those structures. As a result, the bodies of those killed in the hotel explosions were badly damaged.
He said this made identification of the deceased at hotels more difficult. He also said it was also difficult to distinguish between the bodies of Asians, especially between Indians and Sri Lankans.
He emphasised that the total death toll has been revised to 253. Of this number around 245 bodies had been handed over to the families of the deceased.
Twenty four persons injured in Sunday’s explosions remain in the intensive care units, a Health Ministry official said.
Eighty-one persons remain hospitalised and are undergoing treatment, he said.
He added that eight bodies are yet to be identified. They remain at the Colombo JMOs office. Of these six are believed to be those of foreigners. He said there were more than 42 bodies of foreign nationals.
Dr Jaasinghe explained that sorting of the bodies was complex as many people had been blown to pieces. He pointed out that the Negombo hospital was using a small area as the temporary morgue to store the bodies of those blown to pieces in the explosions. The body parts were stored in body bags provided by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
He said the National Hospital, which received many bodies which were badly damaged, were faced with a similar situation.
He stressed teams of six consultant Judicial Medical Officers (JMOs) were deployed at the Negambo and Colombo hospitals to ensure that correctness of the numbers killed. He said the death count at the two hospitals showed 102 to 114 at the two hospitals had died.
He emphatically stated that he had never submitted the figures of 320 to 369 deaths and insisted the death toll stood at 253.
However the Sunday Times learned that the discrepancy in the figures was a result of figures submitted by the police at the National Security Council.
An official of the Ministry of Health said, statistics of the dead and injured were available at the Department of Health, but, unfortunately, police officers had published wrong figures without consulting the department. He added, it was the Ministry which was authorised to publish figures of the death toll and accused the police of being unprofessional in releasing figures without reference to the ministry.