MARK BANNERMAN: When a wave of destruction hit the Thai coast, it brought with it terrible stories of heartbreak. Too many, perhaps, to tell.
ABC correspondent Philip Williams has spent much of his time in the area around Phuket talking to tourists who've lost their friends and their families.
For many of those families, the search has now ended. With or without definitive answers, most are returning home.
But for the local population, there is nowhere else to go. They too have stories to tell as they battle loss and a life of future poverty.
Philip Williams reflects on the grim aftermath of the tsunami in Phuket.
PHILIP WILLIAMS: It is the sheer scale of this disaster that is so confronting. Not a train wreck, a car pile-up or a capsized ferry, but a force so overwhelming that happy tourists enjoying the first dip of the day vanished beneath the waves - thousands of them.
Thai villages like Num Khem were obliterated. Two thousand lives were lost here alone.
On the island of Phi Phi, the tropical paradise was a cadaver-strewn hell. Heavy machinery had to be brought in to recover the mainly foreign dead.
It's difficult to believe that just a few days ago, right here where I'm standing, was the centre of a bustling tourist district. There would have been hundreds, perhaps a couple of thousand people here, and it's all completely gone.
Now, all that remains is the search for bodies. It's a grim search indeed. I know there are some behind me here because I can smell them. And it is the smell that lingers after the bloated bodies have been removed. It sticks with you on your clothes, in your nostrils. You can even taste it.
How terrible for the police and volunteer workers who have to wade through the piles of rotting humanity, looking for clues as to who these people were.
BILL PATERSON (AUSTRALIAN AMBASSADOR TO THAILAND): That will never leave me. I have to say, I've been around a number of war zones and crisis situations in my time, but I have to say that yesterday was just one of the most overwhelming experiences I've ever had.
PHILIP WILLIAMS: It is the living that make the loss of loved ones so unbearable, like this German woman still hoping her five-year-old son had survived.
ANDREA LEGER (MOTHER OF MISSING BOY): I'm still hoping that Tim is somewhere in a hospital and can't talk and is just unconscious or whatever, so that we're still hoping.
PHILIP WILLIAMS: How long will you stay here?
ANDREA LEGER: Well, we decided to stay here until we find him, but I don't know if we can do that, so I don't know. A few more days, 'cause I don't want to go home without him.
PHILIP WILLIAMS: But that is what so many have had to do, like Rod and Terry Emerson, here in Phuket to find missing sister and cousin Kim.
ROD EMERSON (RELATIVE OF MISSING WOMAN): The hardest part's talking to family, to my immediate family - mum and Karen, my sister, and Nicole, my wife, and my two boys. You know, they ask you, the kids don't understand. They'll just say "Dad, bring Kim home."
PHILIP WILLIAMS: Tragically, Queenslander Craig Baxter's family and friends did get their answer. His body was identified by his distinctive tattoos. For hour after hour, Wan Baxter sits by her husband's coffin. She refuses to leave Craig's side, the Queenslander she married just last March; the father to her unborn child - she's four months pregnant.
WAN BAXTER (WIFE OF VICTIM): I love him. I love Craig. I want to stay with him forever.
PHILIP WILLIAMS: There are many homes all over the world where bedrooms will be as empty as the survivors.
ANDREA LEGER: It's our sixth time here, so I guess I’ll never come back.
PHILIP WILLIAMS: Well, we very much hope that you have some good news soon.
ANDREA LEGER: I hope so, too.
PHILIP WILLIAMS: Thank you.
ANDREA LEGER: Thank you.
PHILIP WILLIAMS: It's been just as bad for the Thais, and even where the carnage has not been total, up and down the coast, the effect will linger for years.
In the fishing village of Rawai, life depends on the sea. Now, there are precious few boats left on the water. The ocean that has sustained these people and generations before them has suddenly and violently robbed them of their future.
Ari Fongsaten looks out to a sea he no longer trusts. His boat smashed by the waves, he and his family were lucky to survive. But a new boat would cost $700, which is 700 more than he’s got.
ARI FONGSATEN (SURVIVOR): No boat, cannot go fishing. The boat broken.
PHILIP WILLIAMS: No boat, no money, no food?
ARI FONGSATEN: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
PHILIP WILLIAMS: Now, instead of fishing, the men wait restively on land, unsure of what happens next. And even if they were catching fish, there's little demand.
This small haul is from another island. But people everywhere are reluctant to buy because they worry the fish may have fed on the bodies of the dead.
Now, independence has become simply dependence. The children clamour for a small packet of food. The women in the village wait patiently for the aid packages. They're from the Red Cross and the King. It's appreciated - people would starve without it - but there's great uncertainty about the future.
It all comes down to boats. The beach is littered with the skeletal remains of people's livelihoods. Some simply sunk at their moorings. The fishermen do what they can, but the challenge is enormous.
This is the only full-time boat builder in the village. He used to have a steady job. Now, demand on his skills make it impossible. There are simply too many here to repair. Eventually, with time and money, these boats can be repaired. What may not be so easily restored is these people's faith in the sea which, until now, has so utterly sustained them.
Sixty-eight-year-old Win Hidathong was injured when he was swept out of his boat and smashed his legs on rocks. He told me he's frightened. It would take him months to get a new boat, but even though he's terrified to go back to sea, he has to because it's the only way he can earn a living.
Everyone here knows it's much worse in places like Aceh and Sri Lanka, where, even if there were boats, there are few fishermen alive to sail them. But that's little compensation for a village unused to being dependent on hand-outs; where there's no certainty the old cycles of fishing and family will settle back into their comfortable rhythms.
The future depends on boats and on conquering the new fear of the sea. Money and confidence. Ari has run out of both.
There is one final thought. It takes a dramatic event for a dramatic response - pledges of billions for relief and reconstruction - as it should be. But thousands, especially children, die of preventable diseases in poor countries around the world every day. There are no cameras or special appeals. It's how you die, it seems, that determines how the world responds.
ABC correspondent Philip Williams has spent much of his time in the area around Phuket talking to tourists who've lost their friends and their families.
For many of those families, the search has now ended. With or without definitive answers, most are returning home.
But for the local population, there is nowhere else to go. They too have stories to tell as they battle loss and a life of future poverty.
Philip Williams reflects on the grim aftermath of the tsunami in Phuket.
PHILIP WILLIAMS: It is the sheer scale of this disaster that is so confronting. Not a train wreck, a car pile-up or a capsized ferry, but a force so overwhelming that happy tourists enjoying the first dip of the day vanished beneath the waves - thousands of them.
Thai villages like Num Khem were obliterated. Two thousand lives were lost here alone.
On the island of Phi Phi, the tropical paradise was a cadaver-strewn hell. Heavy machinery had to be brought in to recover the mainly foreign dead.
It's difficult to believe that just a few days ago, right here where I'm standing, was the centre of a bustling tourist district. There would have been hundreds, perhaps a couple of thousand people here, and it's all completely gone.
Now, all that remains is the search for bodies. It's a grim search indeed. I know there are some behind me here because I can smell them. And it is the smell that lingers after the bloated bodies have been removed. It sticks with you on your clothes, in your nostrils. You can even taste it.
How terrible for the police and volunteer workers who have to wade through the piles of rotting humanity, looking for clues as to who these people were.
BILL PATERSON (AUSTRALIAN AMBASSADOR TO THAILAND): That will never leave me. I have to say, I've been around a number of war zones and crisis situations in my time, but I have to say that yesterday was just one of the most overwhelming experiences I've ever had.
PHILIP WILLIAMS: It is the living that make the loss of loved ones so unbearable, like this German woman still hoping her five-year-old son had survived.
ANDREA LEGER (MOTHER OF MISSING BOY): I'm still hoping that Tim is somewhere in a hospital and can't talk and is just unconscious or whatever, so that we're still hoping.
PHILIP WILLIAMS: How long will you stay here?
ANDREA LEGER: Well, we decided to stay here until we find him, but I don't know if we can do that, so I don't know. A few more days, 'cause I don't want to go home without him.
PHILIP WILLIAMS: But that is what so many have had to do, like Rod and Terry Emerson, here in Phuket to find missing sister and cousin Kim.
ROD EMERSON (RELATIVE OF MISSING WOMAN): The hardest part's talking to family, to my immediate family - mum and Karen, my sister, and Nicole, my wife, and my two boys. You know, they ask you, the kids don't understand. They'll just say "Dad, bring Kim home."
PHILIP WILLIAMS: Tragically, Queenslander Craig Baxter's family and friends did get their answer. His body was identified by his distinctive tattoos. For hour after hour, Wan Baxter sits by her husband's coffin. She refuses to leave Craig's side, the Queenslander she married just last March; the father to her unborn child - she's four months pregnant.
WAN BAXTER (WIFE OF VICTIM): I love him. I love Craig. I want to stay with him forever.
PHILIP WILLIAMS: There are many homes all over the world where bedrooms will be as empty as the survivors.
ANDREA LEGER: It's our sixth time here, so I guess I’ll never come back.
PHILIP WILLIAMS: Well, we very much hope that you have some good news soon.
ANDREA LEGER: I hope so, too.
PHILIP WILLIAMS: Thank you.
ANDREA LEGER: Thank you.
PHILIP WILLIAMS: It's been just as bad for the Thais, and even where the carnage has not been total, up and down the coast, the effect will linger for years.
In the fishing village of Rawai, life depends on the sea. Now, there are precious few boats left on the water. The ocean that has sustained these people and generations before them has suddenly and violently robbed them of their future.
Ari Fongsaten looks out to a sea he no longer trusts. His boat smashed by the waves, he and his family were lucky to survive. But a new boat would cost $700, which is 700 more than he’s got.
ARI FONGSATEN (SURVIVOR): No boat, cannot go fishing. The boat broken.
PHILIP WILLIAMS: No boat, no money, no food?
ARI FONGSATEN: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
PHILIP WILLIAMS: Now, instead of fishing, the men wait restively on land, unsure of what happens next. And even if they were catching fish, there's little demand.
This small haul is from another island. But people everywhere are reluctant to buy because they worry the fish may have fed on the bodies of the dead.
Now, independence has become simply dependence. The children clamour for a small packet of food. The women in the village wait patiently for the aid packages. They're from the Red Cross and the King. It's appreciated - people would starve without it - but there's great uncertainty about the future.
It all comes down to boats. The beach is littered with the skeletal remains of people's livelihoods. Some simply sunk at their moorings. The fishermen do what they can, but the challenge is enormous.
This is the only full-time boat builder in the village. He used to have a steady job. Now, demand on his skills make it impossible. There are simply too many here to repair. Eventually, with time and money, these boats can be repaired. What may not be so easily restored is these people's faith in the sea which, until now, has so utterly sustained them.
Sixty-eight-year-old Win Hidathong was injured when he was swept out of his boat and smashed his legs on rocks. He told me he's frightened. It would take him months to get a new boat, but even though he's terrified to go back to sea, he has to because it's the only way he can earn a living.
Everyone here knows it's much worse in places like Aceh and Sri Lanka, where, even if there were boats, there are few fishermen alive to sail them. But that's little compensation for a village unused to being dependent on hand-outs; where there's no certainty the old cycles of fishing and family will settle back into their comfortable rhythms.
The future depends on boats and on conquering the new fear of the sea. Money and confidence. Ari has run out of both.
There is one final thought. It takes a dramatic event for a dramatic response - pledges of billions for relief and reconstruction - as it should be. But thousands, especially children, die of preventable diseases in poor countries around the world every day. There are no cameras or special appeals. It's how you die, it seems, that determines how the world responds.