“I wanted them to know I existed. A couple of days after what happened, I would have expected some support from the British Government at this point I was definitely aware that compared to other people from other countries I wasn’t really getting much attention. There were representatives, I think, for the Dutch, Swedish, French Governments wandering round. Or even just some information from - you know – like the government knows you’re here. Or this is what the British Government is doing, we’re trying to arrange flights, that kind of thing. But there was just nothing.”
“The British Embassy in Bangkok made promises of assistance that were never delivered. They were ineffective/unhelpful and hindered my evacuation. I hold the British Embassy responsible for doing nothing when they knew of our plight. Words cannot describe how disappointing and useless the staff in Bangkok, and later in Phuket, were.”
“British Consulate members were on holiday in the area. After the tsunami they sat in our guest house which was just out of reach of the tsunami, they didn’t help anyone in any way, they sat there and got drunk until a minibus they had called for arrived.
When it arrived they didn’t offer anyone else a lift to a safe area, they just left. Their conduct was disgraceful and made me ashamed to be British. I’ve never seen such a selfish and self-interested display, it was truly horrifying to see.”
“[I suggest we need] better trained professional British Embassy staff who do not treat the public as idiots and get rid of that superiority. To admit that they do not know if they do not know the answer and say they will find out, instead of just bluffing and giving wrong information. I was very close to changing my nationality. In fact I thought their whole attitude was appalling.”
“No help is better than bad help.”
“They went to the Embassy the next day, or whatever, to get their passports and spoke to someone at the Embassy and said, “look are you going to do anything to help us get home, are you going to put us on a flight?” and they said “no, we don’t actually have any plans at the moment, what we will do, we will take your number at the hotel and…we will phone you if we are going to do that” so that’s fine, they give them the details and a couple of days later, my brother-in-law picked up a newspaper in Bangkok, in English, and reads “British Government flies home survivors and a chartered British Airways jet flies home survivors.” I don’t know how many but (it was) way under capacity, it was virtually empty. It is absolutely outrageous. It is really outrageous.”
“Most embassies were there. When I say that, I mean Swedish, French or Australian, you know, and so we didn’t know what had happened. The Australian Embassy at that point took control of us and told us what was happening because the British Embassy hadn’t arrived. They were like, “we don’t know where your Embassy is, they should be on their way” but they were nowhere to be seen so we were like, “God, what’s happening?”
“Then…we got to the passport desk, the only thing that really annoyed me about the whole thing. I handed four passports in and he said, “I’m sorry they’re very wet”. He didn’t even look at me, he said, “I suppose you’ve dropped them down a toilet have you”? And I said, “No, we’ve just been in Sri Lanka”. And he just went, “Oh”. It showed me how little staff had been briefed. It’s something that we still remember. If it was twelve hours afterwards we could cope with that, but two and a half days afterwards and no-one…well this is the only time now I’ve nearly got emotional, sort of going through this whole interview, because that’s the part that really made me maddest.”
“We were unable to have a meaningful conversation with someone in the UK until the tenth of January 2005: that is, fifteen days after the disaster.”
Source: Review of the Experiences of United Kingdom Nationals Affected by the Indian Ocean Tsunami, National Audit Office. www.nao.org.uk