[Guidelines in mass disaster victims identification through the Tsunami experience (December 26, 2004)]

The adequate management of a victim's identification must go through an essential rigour in the applied methodology. This is all the more necessary when you face a mass disaster such as the Tsunami of December 26, 2004. We will explain in this presentation how the DVI Belgian Team, in close collaboration with the other International Teams, proceeded in January 2005, adopting real guidelines, in strict accordance with the Interpol fixed ones. We will review the various stages of our work, paying special attention to the fingerprints, the examination of clothes, jewels and specific objects, but also to the external and internal examinations of the corpses, the odontological and anthropological approaches and the systematic DNA samplings. Both rigour and application of the Interpol international conventions allow such a systematic approach. Only this optimal procedure can guarantee the best identifications of numerous victims.