VIENNA, March 5, 2005 (IslamONline.net & News Agencies) – In what is believed to be the first worldwide claim, several dozen European victims of Asia's tsunami disaster have filed a lawsuit against Thai authorities, US forecasters and a French hotel chain.

US lawyer Edward Fagan and two other lawyers filed the suit with a New York district court on Friday, March 4, on behalf of more than 60 plaintiffs from Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland and France, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

The suit was filed against the Thai government, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and its Tsunami Warning Center, and the French hotel group Sofitel, said Herwig Hasslacher, one of the group's lawyers.

The court was expected to set a date for a hearing within the next 30 days in which tsunami survivors could be heard, he added.

The plaintiffs accuse Thai authorities of not releasing information about the impending sea surge as soon as they received it, arguing that a more prompt alert would have saved thousands of lives.

They also accuse the NOAA, whose Hawaii-based tsunami warning center covers only the Pacific, of not informing Indian Ocean states of the tsunami even though they had registered the seaquake.

The French hotel chain Sofitel, part of the group Accor, is accused of knowingly building the Sofitel Khao Lak Beach in the Thai resort of Phuket on a fault line, along with failing to inform parents of the victims and failing to repatriate some of the victims' bodies.

The lawyers said the suit was not, at present, designed to demand compensation but to uncover evidence that would prove negligence.

Fagan asked the US court to ensure the preservation of key documents needed for the case, such as satellite imagery and contacts between the NOAA, Thailand and Indonesia.

The Indian Ocean tsunami triggered by a massive quake off Indonesia killed at least 5,395 people in Thailand, half believed to be foreign tourists.

A further 3,000 people are still listed as missing in the kingdom.