Tsunami Horrors

More than a week after a deadly tsunami strick Southeast Asia, the task of finding, identifying and burying the dead continues. The bodies of some victims will never be found, while many others that are recovered could take months to identify through DNA and dental records, officials said.
WARNING: some of the photos contained here depict graphic scenes.

Idris, left, a 35-year-old Acehnese man who works in construction, covers his face as he and relatives examine bodies in a search for his missing wife, three children and sister, in the center of Banda Aceh, Sumatra, Indonesia, Jan. 3, 2005. Idris, who works outside Banda Aceh, has searched in vain at all known refugee centers around the city and is still looking to find his family more than week after a devastating tidal wave.

Bodies of the victims of the tidal wave float in a river in the center of Banda Aceh, Indonesia, Jan. 2, 2005.

Indonesian police carry the body of a victim of last week's tidal wave, which struck the north-western Indonesian island of Sumatra, from the rubble in Banda Aceh, Jan. 1, 2005. More bodies are being found as soldiers and rescuers conduct a massive cleanup of the city.

Workers, searching for bodies remaining unburied after Sunday's tsunami, place wood over a body before cremation in Mullaitivu in the rebel-controlled northern part of Sri Lanka, Dec. 31, 2004.

Relatives of tsunami victims cry near their bodies at a school in Tamil Tiger-controlled town of Mulathive, about 163 miles northeast of Colombo, Sri Lanka, Dec. 27, 2004.

Rescue workers disinfect bodies, while forensic teams do DNA testing, background, at a makeshift morgue set up at a Buddhist temple in Takuapa in southern Thailand on Dec. 30, 2004.

A Thai forensic worker takes a sample for a DNA test to identify one of the hundreds of bodies at a makeshift morgue set up at a Buddhist temple in Takuapa in southern Thailand on Dec. 30, 2004.

The body of a young girl killed by the weekend's massive tsunami lies outstretched on a beach of a flattened fishing village, Dec. 29, 2004, in the eastern coastal town of Batticaloa, Sri Lanka.

Residents look on as charity workers wash the bodies of victims of Sunday's tidal waves and flooding at a pier at Nam Khem village in Pang-Nga province, southern Thailand, Dec. 29, 2004. Rescuers were hoping for "individual miracles" of survival as they combed the beaches and islands of southern Thailand for missing tourists and locals swept away by earthquake-powered tidal waves.

Residents and a Buddhist monk examine bodies of the victims of Sunday's tidal waves and flooding at a temple in Pang-Nga province, southern Thailand, Dec. 29, 2004.

Rescue workers carry body bags before a mass burial near the provincial capital of Banda Aceh, Aceh province, Indonesia's Sumatra island, Dec. 29, 2004. The military was preparing to dig mass graves on Indonesia's battered Sumatra Island.

Search-and-rescue workers carry away bodies that had washed up on shore, Dec. 28, 2004, at Ton Sai Bay on Phi Phi Island, in Thailand.

Rescue workers load bodies of victims who were killed by tidal waves in Galle, Sri Lanka, Dec. 28, 2004. Families of the dead used cooking utensils and even their bare hands to dig graves in the aftermath of a huge tidal wave in Sri Lanka, as rescuers searching through the debris for more bodies.

A government worker carries the unidentified body of a baby in to a mass burial pit made for all unclaimed victims of the tidal wave in a cemetery arranged on government land, where more than 600 people are being buried near the southern Sri Lankan town of Galle, Dec. 28, 2004.

Volunteers search through the debris-clogged streets of Takuapa, Thailand, Dec. 28, 2004, for those killed by a tsunami wave.

People search for their relatives among debris as a body of victim lies on the street, foreground, in Galle, Sri Lanka, Dec. 28, 2004.

An unidentified person carries his son as relatives and others grieve at the site of a mass burial at Cuddalore, India, Dec. 27, 2004.

An unidentified man cries as he sits near the body of his wife, as other unidentified bodies of victims killed in tidal waves lay nearby at a government hospital in Madras, India, Dec. 26, 2004.

A mother grieves as another relative carries the body of a child washed ashore at Silver Beach in Cuddalore, in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, Dec. 27, 2004.