Tourists jet in to ravaged Phuket

A trickle of determined tourists are jetting into Phuket, arriving in almost-empty planes to the bewilderment of hundreds of survivors fleeing the area.

"Our friends think we're mad," said Englishman Paul Cunliffe, an engineer from Manchester, adding that he and his two companions were booked into a beach-front hotel that escaped serious harm.

Hotel staff had assured them they would have a "wonderful holiday".

"We love the place that much and we thought we would take the risk," he said.

And Phuket taxi driver Apichart observed drily, "The Russians don't cancel ... they have so many problems where they come from, they don't care about tsunamis."

Three days at sea

A fisherman who clung to his capsized boat for three days was rescued when the crew of a Sri Lankan Air Force helicopter spotted him.

The aircraft had been on a mission to drop food to 300 people cut off by floodwaters when its crew glimpsed fisherman Sini Mohammed Sarfudeen.

Refuge becomes hell For Scandinavia and Germany, fond of viewing Asia as a winter refuge, the tsunami has turned a tropical paradise into hell. More than 2000 Scandinavians and 1000 Germans are still missing. 

"This will affect Swedish lives for a long time to come," Prime Minister Goran Persson said, shortly after King Carl XVI Gustaf made a rare public broadcast to express his grief.

German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer urged people to give money to victims instead of buying New Year fireworks.

Teams from Israel

In Israel, with 100 missing, news of the hunt for survivors has eclipsed forthcoming Palestinian elections and Israeli political rumblings.

Asia's beaches are a top destination for Israeli youngsters and ultra-Orthodox Jews from the Zaka rescue service, used to rushing to the scene of bombings, have gone to Thailand to identify any Israeli dead.

Not all aid welcomed

At Nagapattinam, India, a noisy crowd jostled past a young mother holding her infant daughter heading for a load of clothes delivered to a shelter.

Carrying her baby in one arm, 22-year-old Kayalvizhi joined the rush, but she turned away without taking anything.

"We may have lost our homes, but this is so demeaning," she said, pointing to the heap of old clothes piled next to the road.

"The clothes were used ones, and wearing them is demeaning by itself. But they expect us to pick them up from the road. We don't want anything from them."

Fisherman's horror

Dilip Sivakumar's family has made a living from the sea for generations. This week the ocean took it back.

He is one of just 15 survivors of a 36-strong extended family that lived in the fishing hamlet of Unawatuna on Sri Lanka's southern coast.

He and a younger brother were about 30km offshore when they felt the sea swell.

But only hours later, when he returned to land with nets full from a good catch, did he discover that the ocean that had given him his bounty had destroyed almost his entire family.

An expert natural navigator, he simply didn't recognise the horizon.

"Once I see the shore, I see a certain tree, the roof of my house, then I know the currents and I get in," he said.

"I could see the trees, but I couldn't see any buildings."

Car saves family

A British father told how he battled to save the lives of his four children as his wife was swept to her death at Phuket.

Nigel Willgrass, 43, explained how he clung on to his daughter Katie, aged 7, and told his three other children to stick together as they desperately held on to debris in swirling water 9m deep.

Willgrass was in a hire car with Katie, daughter Emily, 16, and sons Ben, 14, and Michael, 9, and a family friend Sophie Rudkin, 15, when the huge wave hit.

They had parked near the seafront and wife Louise, 43, had got out to walk 100m to a supermarket to buy some sun cream but was swept away.

Willgrass said: "We were being carried along around 30 feet up in the air ... we hit the top of a palm tree and the window smashed and somehow the back door came open.

"I told everyone to get out and stick together. There were parts of sunbeds floating past and everyone managed to get hold of something to help them float."

- AGENCIES