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by Didier Lauras, PHUKET, Thailand, (AFP) Beautiful weather, a light breeze, a flat sea - and then a giant wave that sweeps away everything in its path: the survivors of Sunday's catastrophe are finding it difficult to accept the reality of what happened, experts say.

Women sift through the rubble of destroyed houses in the southern Sri Lankan city of Galle, 31 December 2004. More than 28,400 people were confirmed dead in Sri Lanka’s tsunami disaster, while nearly 5,000 remained missing and possibly dead, the president’s office said.

Unlike other types of disasters unleashed by nature, tsunamis are as unreal as they are silent. "In the case for example of the storms in France in 1999, one saw the event. Here it was beautiful weather - one wave and it was all over. Very quick," said Bruno Lartigue, a doctor with Paris fire brigade here to help the victims.

Three days later, several of the survivors are still shocked.

"When you are a victim of an accident, accepting what happened is 80 percent of the psychological work," said an aid worker with a French Red Cross team in Thailand's devastated tourist island of Phuket to assist survivors.

"But here, there has been no accident. The water retreated, everyone was fascinated ... A first wave arrived, not very strong. When people saw the second, it was too late," he said.

Even the cause of tsunamis is difficult to comprehend. "It is an impalpable fact, invisible. A (tectonic) plate which has moved somewhere," he said.

The survivors coming to the Red Cross teams for assistance are often torn apart by family tragedy.

One man was holding his wife and son by the hand. The first wave took his son, the second took his wife. He stood there, petrified by powerlessness and guilt that he had not been able to keep hold of them. "They are still in the moment. They have not yet analysed what they went through. They are in an episode of a drama which is still going on," said Christophe Talmet, Head of the French Red Cross mission in Thailand. The days and weeks that come will be vital for victims to come to grips with their emotions.

"They absolutely have to express their feelings before it becomes a pathology," he said.

Several of the Western tourists who survived the ordeal have already left for home. Those who remain refuse to give up hope, tortured by the refusal to abandon the living, or worse, the dead without burial.

While the bodies pile up in the temples in the north of the island and the Thai authorities gather volunteers to wrap them in sheets, hope is becoming more and more fragile.

Soon, to prevent outbreaks of disease, bodies will have to be incinerated, ending the chance of taking blood samples or photographs necessary for identification. Then there will be a new trauma for survivors who have lost a loved one, denied a coffin, a burial, the true reality of death.

"People do not want to leave," said one aid worker. "When they have not seen the body, they don't believe it."

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