'The injured just kept coming'

Doctors today told of their 12-day battle to cope with 2,000 patients following the giant wave.

And despite being almost overwhelmed, medics at the Bangkok Phuket Hospital say so far only one man has died, a Belgian tourist.

The hospital, one of the best in Phuket, is designed to take 120 patients.

Dr Kongkiat Kespechara said: "They kept coming and coming. The first day we had about 200 cases in 12 hours. I did not sleep for 24 hours.

They kept coming. I could not stop. We had about 30 patients waiting in line for the operating theatre."

Dr Kespechara said that everyone helped, adding: "Even the psychiatrist did wound-cleaning, the eye doctor did sutures, the orthopaedic doctor did first aid." And apart from the tiredness, there was the emotional cost to deal with. Dr Kespechara said: "Our most senior surgeon was crying during an operation. He was operating on a small child, about nine years old, who was the same age as his daughter. He had been operating for two days without sleep."

Chay Kyme, 33, from Middlesbrough, who owns a diving centre with his girlfriend Andrea Whittington, 29, from Eltham, said: "This one is better than most hospitals in England. When I arrived here I said, 'Oh, thank God'."