Father reunited with boy who was found alone

PHUKET, Thailand -- A Swedish toddler was reunited with his weeping father in a Thai hospital yesterday, days after the 18-month-old was found sitting alone on a roadside in the aftermath of the tsunami disaster. The boy's mother is among some 5,000 people still missing in Thailand.

Hannes Bergstroem, his face scratched and pocked with mosquito bites and his hand bandaged, looked bemused as his father choked up with emotion. The father, also scratched and bruised, lay in a hospital bed, holding Hannes with balloons around them.

Hannes was found alone on a roadside near a Thai beach resort Sunday night and he was taken by helicopter to a hospital for treatment. The hospital staff posted his photo on the Internet Monday in an effort to locate his family.

His uncle, who spotted the photo, claimed the boy Tuesday and set up the reunion with the father, Marko Karkkainen, at a hospital on the southern Thai island of Phuket where both father and son were receiving treatment.

The boy's mother, Suzanne Bergstroem, has been missing since the giant earthquake-spawned waves hit on Sunday, plowing into the Thai resorts where thousands of Western tourists were vacationing.