S.L. firm offers to ID bodies in tsunami

Many of the dead from last year's tsunami were buried in mass graves to prevent disease from spreading. Now, some are considering mass exhumations.

If that occurs, Sorenson Genomics is willing to resume identifying remains from DNA samples.

In the months after the December 2004 disaster, the South Salt Lake company analyzed specimens to help identify victims through DNA comparisons to relatives.

By the time the work ended last summer, the company had run at least 7,000 tests on 1,300 samples, 800 of them from decomposed bodies. The work took more than 600 worker hours and totaled $1.2 million in free work, the company said.

Lars Mouritsen, the company's chief scientific officer, said that if the exhumations go forward, Sorenson once again will undertake the task of identification.

"We're offering our services," he said.