The first Hong Kong casualty of the tsunami was confirmed last night, as the government said more than 200 city residents remain unaccounted for, nearly three days after the catastrophe.
The dead man, surnamed Leung, aged 39 and a British passport holder, was identified in a Phuket hospital by his expatriate wife, said Hong Kong immigration officer Lee To-lung, who is on the southern Thai island.
Chief Secretary Donald Tsang Yam-kuen said 213 Hong Kong people were missing. 'I want to stress that the information we have gathered is very unclear and may not be accurate,' he said.
An Immigration Department source said last night it was unlikely any of the missing would be found alive. Most were in Thailand when the tsunami struck.
An eight-year-old Hong Kong boy missing in Thailand was found yesterday, but he faces the heartbreaking realisation that his father, brother and sister may be dead.
Leonard Dreher's aunt, who had flown in from Hong Kong on Monday, found him in a hospital near the devastated resort strip of Khao Lak, where more than 1,000 people - most of them holidaymakers and hotel staff - are feared dead.
The boy's 68-year-old German grandfather, Siegfried, and his mother, Camilla, were found lying injured in different hospitals.