At least 2,000 unidentified bodies of tsunami victims will be exhumed for a new round of DNA checks to ensure the international standard is met in Thailand, Justice Minister Pongthep Thepkanchana has said.

The re-checks will only be carried out on the bodies kept at Wat Yanyao in Phangnga province for a team of forensic experts led by the ministry are working there, the Bangkok Post newspaper Thursday quoted Pongthep as saying.

Earlier, about 800 victims buried at Bang Maruan cemetery in Phangnga's Takua Pa district were exhumed for DNA chip implanting in a bid to make sure foreigners were not mixed up with Thais.

Meanwhile, the Royal Thai Police Office is replacing the Justice Ministry for taking over tsunami corpse clearing responsibility.

Pol Gen Noppadol Somboonsap, who was assigned to supervise the clearing work, said the body identification system need to be streamlined and it was the police's duty to manage processes from registering corpses to identifying them.

Dissectors Victim Identification (DVI) experts will soon arrive at the tsunami-ravaged provinces of Phuket, Phangnga and Krabi to start body-identification.

(Xinhua News Agency January 13, 2005)