http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/BKK308503.htm

Thai tsunami workers turn vegetarian - report
14 Jan 2005 06:03:08 GMT

Source: Reuters

BANGKOK, Jan 14 (Reuters) - The gruesome task of retrieving the bodies of tsunami victims has turned many Thai rescue workers vegetarian, the Matichon newspaper said on Friday.

"Our operations in the first days weren't going smoothly," Chatchawan Suthiarun, who led a team of 70 in Khao Lak where about 4,000 people, more than half of them foreign tourists, were killed on Dec. 26, told the Thai-language newspaper.

"After we turned to vegetarian food and lighting jossticks to the spirits asking for help, the job has become much easier, he said.

Matichon said vegetarian food was all the rage in one nearby village, where a makeshift relief kitchen produced about 1,000 boxes of meatless food a day.

The newspaper quoted a survivor as saying that the smell of death had put her off meat.