The full horror of the Asian tsunami will live forever with one Crook man who spent five days as a volunteer in Thailand helping to identify dead bodies, reports Luke Dicicco.

Oliver Maurice, chairman of the Lake District Tourism and Conservation Partnership, arrived back in the UK almost two weeks ago after extending his stay in Asia and returning to Phuket to help in the massive and gruelling clean-up operation following the devastating tsunami on Boxing Day.

The 60 year old worked in soaring temperatures of 30 to 40 degrees helping to ascertain whether dead bodies, many discovered three weeks earlier and kept in chilled containers, were of Thai or foreign origin.

Now the former North West regional director for the National Trust has returned to the Lake District to urge more volunteers to come forward, call for patience from countries across the globe over the repatriation of bodies and encourage people not to cancel trips to the area to prevent a "second catastrophe" the collapse of the country's essential tourist industry.

"It was grizzly and painstakingly slow but the job had to be done," Mr Maurice told the Gazette.

"I think patience is going to have to be a virtue for the countries awaiting repatriation of bodies because, in some cases, it was difficult enough ascertaining gender let alone ethnic origin.

"With the best will in the world it's not straight forward. People don't understand what's going on."

Click on News - Tsunami for full story and details on volunteering.