The Swedish government said on Monday that 827 people have been confirmed missing in the Asian tsunami among the 2,322 reported cases.

Swedish State Foreign Secretary Hans Dahlgren said 52 Swedish nationals have been confirmed dead so far while Prime Minister Goeran Persson warned that the death toll could pass 1,000, which would be the highest among Western nations.

Sweden has not experienced "a catastrophe of this kind and havebeen out of wars for almost 200 years," Persson said Monday, asking Swedes to pull themselves together.

The latest tragedy causing mass casualties of Swedes happened in 1994, when a ferry sank in the Baltic Sea and left 892 dead, including 551 Swedes.

Persson said the National Police Board would compile as of Tuesday lists of the missing and those unaccounted for.

The Swedish government will also create a national council to provide information about survivors and victims, he said.

A Swedish airplane was due to fly back home the first six bodies of Swedes on Tuesday, Persson said.

Among the 827 Swedes confirmed missing, 697 had been in Thailand, and the government lacked information about the whereabouts of 1,495 others who were believed to have been on vacation in the tsunami-hit regions, said the Foreign Ministry.

More than 9,000 foreigners are missing or unaccounted for in the tsunami triggered by a strong earthquake off the Indonesian island of Sumatra on Dec. 26.

The earthquake, with a magnitude of 8.7 in the Richter scale according to China's State Seismological Bureau, and the tsunami have left 140,000 people dead.