Three months after the Indian Ocean tsunami, entrepreneurs in the Thai resort of Patong, on Phuket, have found a new source of income: selling graphic photographs of the after-effects of the storm including explicit shots of dead bodies.
CD-Roms and DVDs of the tsunami are also on sale as the island economy struggles to recover from the decline in tourists after Dec. 26 disaster.
Shops on the busy Thanon Bangla, a street close to the beach where the tsunami struck, are selling pictures of the devastation.
Many of the shots, selling for up to 80 baht apiece (US$2) are of bodies lying on the beach in swimming costumes. One shot shows a row of dead children.
The DVDs are being sold, alongside the standard counterfeit Hollywood fare of The Incredibles, and The Princess Diaries 2, for 199 baht each.
A man who gave his name as Jack, who was selling the photos to European tourists, said that many people were interested in buying them. He said he did not know the identity of the photographers but many shots appeared to have been taken from helicopters.
A middle-aged tourist from Ireland in khaki shorts and shirt studied what was for sale at Jack's store and eventually bought eight photos, including all the most explicit ones.
"Why am I buying them?" he said. "Because a lot of people want them. A lot of people want to see these."
Later the same man was showing the photographs to another man at one of the town's many Irish bars.
Somchai Silapanont, of the Phuket Tourism Association's Tourism Recovery Center, in Patong, said that he disapproved of the sale of the pictures.
"It is not right that they should be for sale, but I am afraid that as long as there is a market people will supply it," he said.
Other souvenirs include a T-shirt, displayed at many stores, which proclaims: "2001 - bomb alert; 2002 - SARS; 2003 - Bird flu; 2004 - Tsunami. What's Next?"
Phuket is slowing recovering from the disaster but there is concern that the vast sums of money that were contributed internationally are still not finding their way to those most affected.
"My sister was killed and my house was completely destroyed," said Chet, a taxi driver from a village to the north of Patong.
He gave a hollow laugh when asked if he had received any help or compensation: "No, nothing. The politicians have put the money here ... " and he made a gesture of stuffing money into his shirt pocket.
In all, visitor numbers are still well below normal, at around half of the capacity of the island, where tourism accounts for 80 percent of the economy, Silapanont said. Asian tourists had been slow to return, he said, because their belief in ghosts made the island less attractive as a honeymoon destination.
"On the positive side, we found out that the world had a big heart," he said.
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