THE body of a missing Irish woman has been identified in Thailand after her boyfriend and family searched through thousands of decomposing bodies in numerous make-shift morgues.

The body of the first Irish victim of the Asian tsunami was found in Thailand today.

THE United Nations last night began to mobilise what it called the biggest relief operation in its history to cope with the disaster caused by one of the worst tsunamis in history.

OF THE 12 million tourists who visited Thailand this year, many headed straight to the gems of the south to soak up the sun along tropical beaches, dive on spectacular coral reefs and indulge in a languid, sometimes lascivious, lifestyle.

Dozens of Irish people are still unaccounted for, three days after the Asian tsunami disaster, it was confirmed today.

Rescuers were hoping for “individual miracles” of survival as they combed the beaches and islands of southern Thailand today for missing tourists and locals swept away by earthquake-powered tidal waves.

RESCUE teams converged on beaches and remote islands in search of the missing yesterday as authorities reported that more than 430 people, including a number of foreign tourists, were killed and 4,100 injured when earthquake-spawned tidal waves devastated idyllic resort areas of southern Thailand.

Rescuers piled up bodies along the tropical coasts of southern Asia as the death toll from the biggest quake in four decades that triggered killer tidal waves passed 20,000 people, more than half of them in Sri Lanka.

Rescuers scoured waterlogged coasts across Asia today after an earthquake of epic power struck below the Indian Ocean and sent huge walls of water crashing onto beaches in at least nine countries, killing more than 14,000 people and leaving millions homeless.

Nearly 170 people were killed and more than 1,900 injured, with scores missing in southern Thai resorts after a major earthquake hit southeast Asia today.