A team from the British Embassy in Bangkok, led by the Ambassador, left Bangkok at about 1615hrs local time on 26 December by road, as the airport in Phuket was closed. This team (numbering thirteen including the Ambassador) reached Phuket by midnight. In the meantime, following the reopening of the airport, three further Embassy staff, including the Vice Consul, travelled to Phuket by a special Thai government flight and arrived there at 2300hrs. The Vice Consul immediately set up an office at the main Town Hall in Phuket where many of the casualties had gathered.
12. Our Consular Correspondent in Phuket, who acts as an unofficial and unpaid Honorary Consul, offered the Embassy team office accommodation. This office was running from 0100hrs on 27 December. Another team went to the nearby resort of Krabi in the early hours of 27 December. During the night of 26-27 December, other members of the Phuket team travelled to hospitals in Phuket, and to Phuket airport. From the Phuket office we continued to deploy trained staff to different locations including the very badly affected resorts of Khao Lak and Koh Phi Phi as well as Koh Lanta and Krabi. The British Embassy office in Phuket remained staffed 24 hours a day until 15 January. Staff attempted to cover as large an area as possible, giving priority to locations where the pressures and needs of victims and their families seemed greatest.
13. The Thai authorities at Phuket airport were providing free flights to get people out of the affected region. Victims and their families were passing through quickly. For the first 48 hours, which was the period when many of the British tourists in the area would have left, the Embassy team assessed that there was a greater need for them to have staff at Phuket town hall, local hospitals and other badly hit resorts rather than at Phuket airport. However, after those first 48 hours, they had established a team at the airport throughout the day to provide assistance to distressed British nationals.
14. In Bangkok, the Embassy established teams by the evening of 26 December to cover reception of evacuees, phone handling, hospital visiting and research of government and other websites. Staffing of these teams included spouses and volunteers, including ten staff provided by Standard Chartered Bank and two by Citibank to collate data.
15. The UK presence at Bangkok airport was both the first to arrive and the largest of any country. The teams were in place to meet the very first groups of evacuees who arrived back in Bangkok on a series of special flights from about 1800hrs on 26 December. The airport team spread out and established prominent UK desks in the international, domestic and military terminals. They were well ahead of other Embassies including the US—whose citizens we also assisted in the early stages. The involvement of the Airline Liaison Officer, together later with his regional supervisor from New Delhi, ensured exceptional degrees of access within the airport, including normally restricted areas, and excellent co-operation with BA/Qantas and other major airlines. This helped the swift return of many distressed British national evacuees to the UK using seats available on scheduled flights.
16. The Bangkok consular team handled large numbers of evacuees who had lost passports, money, other documents and clothing—approximately 600 in the first five days. They provided free food in the Embassy Club on a 24 hour basis and free clothing (both donated items and sets of Union Jack emblazoned t-shirts and shorts bought from a local market). They also hired a local photographer to join the consular team for several days to provide free passport photographs. One member of staff looked after two orphaned boys in her flat until their aunt was able to take them back to the UK. The FCO chartered a special flight from Bangkok on 1 January to return 94 stranded British and other European nationals.
House of Commons - Foreign Affairs - Minutes of Evidence