A Yellow Grass man joined countless other volunteers searching the western beaches of Thailand last week for survivors of a massive tsunami wave that hit 12 countries bordering the Indian Ocean on Boxing Day.

Rodney Wilkinson, 45, and his wife, Oum, live on the Island of Phuket in Thailand, near some of the resort beaches where foreign tourists in Thailand suffered some of the largest losses from the disaster.

The United Nations estimates more than 150,000 people have died as a result of the tidal wave, the largest numbers having lived in Sri Lanka and Indonesia.

"At first it didn't seem so bad," said Rodney in a telephone conversation Dec. 28 with his parents Audrey and Bus Wilkinson, who live in Weyburn after farming in Yellow Grass for many years. "It was really hard the first day to tell how bad it was."

In his office in Phuket at 8 a.m., Rodney felt the nine-point earthquake that began the disaster on Boxing Day. It was well over an hour later that the walls of water slammed into sunbathers and resorts on the nearby beaches.

After the first wave receded, people went down to see what was happening and many were caught by the second and third waves, said Rodney. Shortly after, the beaches were evacuated, boats were overturned and stories were coming in about missing people.

Since then, it became apparent that thousands of people were still missing and some resorts had turned into piles of rubble.

Even so, Thailand was not hit nearly as hard as other countries because the tsunami wave mainly hurt the beaches and many Thai beaches are quite protected, he said.

Rodney and his wife spent the next several days trying to help Canadian and Thai officials sort through the confusion to locate Canadian tourists and friends. Both speak English and Thai. Rodney has lived and worked in Thailand for many years.

"There's only so much we can do," he said. "Most of those who can travel have been evacuated and only the injured are not traveling."

The hospitals are overloaded and a lot of nurses and doctors have arrived from other countries but there is a shortage of wards to put them, he said.

By Tuesday night, in the heat and water, bodies were no longer identifiable, he said. Officials were collecting DNA with the hope of identifying people and had no choice but to bury people in mass graves to reduce the spread of disease, he said.

"I've already heard many stories of people who survived, and of family members who just disappeared from their hands in front of them," he told his parents.

Bus and Audrey have traveled in the area twice and find it difficult to imagine the struggle facing the people they have met. "It's different when something like this happens to people you know," said Audrey on Wednesday.

"It must be terrible for them trying to find family members," she said.

Rodney told them the best place to send money to help survivors is through their church. All organizations assist in different ways, he said.

The couple first spoke to their son at 6:30 a.m. on Boxing Day when he woke them up to tell them he was safe. "I don't know what I would have done if I'd seen it on television first," said Bus.

But that did happen to another Weyburn man.

Al Tosczak woke at 3 a.m. and turned on the television, only to hear about the disaster where his son Jeff and wife Crystal (nee Irwin) were enjoying a delayed honeymoon. They were holidaying on the island of Koh Samui on the eastern side of Thailand with Crystal's whole family, the Dave Irwins from Radville.

"I didn't want to tell my wife about the tidal wave," Al said Wednesday.

But a few minutes after his wife Linda woke and heard about the events, Jeff called with the good news their son and in-laws were all fine.

"It was a big relief," he said. "Crystal's family had a place right on the ocean but they were all okay."

A Weyburn aunt was also relieved to hear that her niece is okay.

Vivian Vinge said Rebecca Andrist of Estevan called early Sunday to say she was okay. Rebecca teaches yoga in Thai resorts, which are also located on the eastern side of the country.