BANGKOK, 30 November 2010 – A Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet reported Monday a Scandinavian tourist, visiting Thailand’s popular Cha-am beach resort, died following a box jelly fish sting.
The website, Thaivisa.com, broke the story in Thailand, earlier today, stating Bangkok-based Swedish tour operators had been accused of downplaying the danger of jelly fish in Thai waters for fear of losing business.
According to the Swedish newspaper, Ann Nordh, 59, from Jonkoping, was in Thailand on holiday with her husband. She died last Sunday in the Thai resort of Cha-am, after contact with a deadly box jelly fish.
http://www.ttrweekly.com/site/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/jerryfish.pngThe publication reported there have been two other isolated cases in Thailand and Malaysia involving Swedish tourists. One died from box jelly fish contact in 2008 on Lanta Island off Thailand’s Andaman Sea coast and earlier this year another Swedish tourist died on Langkawi Island in Malaysia.
The Swedish newspaper claimed there was “strong suspicion of a cover-up by the Malaysian authorities” with claims the autopsy report wrongly attributed death to drowning.
There was similar criticism of Scandinavian tour operators in Thailand with the newspaper accusing them of playing down the danger of box jelly fish in Thai waters for fear of losing business.
Aftonbladet reported that Swedish tour operators are only warning holidaymakers locally about the risks, after they arrive at their resort hotels.
Thai authorities are aware of the danger and according to the marine biology centre in Phuket, box jelly fish have become more common in recent years in the waters off Malaysia and Thailand. The centre issued an official warning last winter when an unusual number of the deadly jellyfish were found off the Andaman coast.
To put the threat in context, deaths from box jelly fish are relatively rare with worldwide records indicating less than 70 fatalities since records were kept in the late 1800s. Far more visitors drown in Thailand during the monsoon season (often called green season by tourism officials). In Phuket alone, nine tourists have drowned this year on Karon, Kata, Surin and Nai Thon beaches, according to official records.
Lifeguards in Phuket have recommended that Karon bay should be off limits to swimmers August to November due to strong rip tides.
Phuket’s tourist death toll reached 67 as of this November, with suicide, road accidents and violent crimes causing most of the fatalities.
But encounters with box jelly fish are on the rise throughout Southeast Asia.
Here are some facts on this dangerous bubblepack.
Box Jelly [aka Sea Wasp or Chironex Fleckeri and 20 near relatives are found off the shores of northern Australia, PNG, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.
This marine animal has a boxy bell head the size of a basket ball, four parallel brains [one on each corner], 24 eyes and 60 rectums, according to Dan Nilsson, a vision expert from the University of Lund in Sweden. It comes with 5,000 deadly stinging cells on each of its 10 to 60 two-metre long tentacles.
Some researchers believe that groups of Box Jellies deliberately herd small fish and crustaceans towards the shore in order to trap them, thus bringing them into contact with humans.
New Scientist magazine in 2003 revealed that Box jellies are not “dim-witted ocean drifters,” but “fast, active predators that hunt and kill with incredible speed and brutality.”
This Toxic Box is responsible for at least one death a year around Australia and has killed 67 people since records began in 1883, though the total is misleading since many deaths attributed to heart attacks or drowning could have been caused by toxic jellies.
Problem shores are usually signposted, and this is one serious bubblepack to be avoided at all costs – the most poisonous marine creature in the world.
Bron:TTRweekly
Theo