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Dec 31 2004

British survivors reveal how they joined locals to dig mass grave while waiting to be rescued

By Pete Samson And Rebecca Smith

A BRITISH couple told yesterday how they helped bury babies killed by the tsunami that devastated Sri Lanka.

Jon Walter, 40, and his 42-year-old wife Tanya Smart spent hours perched on a rock with sons Jonah, eight, and Nat, seven, as the deadly flood rushed past.

Then they joined around 150 other tourists in a guest house where they were cut off for three days.

Tanya wept at Heathrow airport as she recalled burying the children.

She said: 'The Sri Lankans buried their dead and we buried ours.

'We all dug the grave together, Sri Lankans and Europeans, but the Sri Lankans wanted to take their own people to their own homes.

'They were all identified, there were two western children ...babies, babies.'

She went on: 'We buried them, we had left them for a while because we didn't want to bury them without a box, but then we were worried about disease because it was so hot. They were buried in a field. The families were there, the two babies, their mothers were there.'

Husband Jon added: 'I pulled two people out of the water and many more were lost. Then 150 of us managed to gather in a hotel and we managed to organise ourselves so that we had a creche, a medical centre and some food.

'We went for two or three days without seeing anyone. The Sri Lankan people looked after us and were amazing.'

Tanya said: 'They had nothing themselves but they gave us whatever they could - food, water and medicine.' The Foreign Office has put the British death toll at 28 - 22 in Thailand, three in the Maldives and three in Sri Lanka.

But the final figure is expected to be more than 100. Sweden has 44 confirmed dead and 4,000 missing, Germany 33 dead and 1,000 missing, France 22 dead, Norway 21, Switzerland 12 and America 12.

Movie legend Lord Attenborough and his wife Sheila have confirmed that their 14-year-old granddaughter Lucy Holland died and their daughter Jane and her mother-in-law Jane Holland are missing in Thailand.

Hopes were raised last night for missing Piers Simon, 33, after dental records showed that a body washed up in Thailand was not him. Piers' brother Luke is searching for a British man, registered under the name of Piuz Simmows, who discharged himself from hospital. He said: 'We are all praying it was Piers.'

Professional scuba diver Andrew Barber, 37, who was feared dead, has been found alive in the Andaman islands.

Hopes were fading last night for a family of four from Herne Bay, Kent.

Former missionary Gareth, his carer wife Floryda Smith and their sons Zerubbabel, nine, and Joshua, six, had taken their children to Sumatra to meet Indonesian relatives. Also missing are Peter Weston, 47, from Owslebury, Hants, whose family saw him swept away in the Maldives. Lisa May, 24, is missing on the Thai island of Phi Phi.

Also feared dead are grandmother Joy Sutherland, 77, from Stamford, Lincs, computer consultant Jonathan Hughes, 33, from Leeds, bank worker Jeremy Stephens, from Norwich, soldier Dave Bailey, 41, from Cornwall, Charlotte Jones, 23, from Petersfield, Hants, Catherine Mullan, 53, and Leonard Barratt, 49, who live near Truro, Cornwall. Honeymoon couple Andrew McLeish, 31, and wife Natalie, 28, of Sheffield, are still missing, but newlyweds Christopher and Gaynor Mullen, from Richmond, Surrey, are thought to be safe. Also unaccounted for are fashion photographer Simon Atlee, 33, radiographer Amanda Britton, 40, her brother Adrian Lester, 41, and father Keith Lester, 71.

Samantha Fayet, 32, her six-month-old daughter Ruby, garden designer Craig Stanley, 30, of Nottingham and his girlfriend Barbara McTaggart, 29, are missing in Thailand.

Missing on Koh Phi Phi are student Sarah Bent, 19, her boyfriend Robert Rowbottom, 21, both of York, backpacker Leanne Cox, 23, of Hartlepool and broker Lincoln Abraham, 34, of London.

The dead include James Hurren, 22, of Caister, Norfolk, Julian Ayer, from London, Brian Clayton, 58, originally from Newcastle, Louise Willgrass, 43, from Colney, near Norwich, Stuart Shields, 37, from Ridgewell, Essex, Lisa Jones, 31, and Mike and Carol Hall, both 60.