Thailand counts cost of quake to tourism

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.

Now, they’re scurrying away in droves, reeling from a disaster of epic proportions which left five-star resorts and €2-a-night bungalows in ruins and polluted the air with the stench of rotting corpses.

Sunday’s earthquake- powered tidal waves dealt a sharp blow to Thailand’s cash cow - the flourishing tourism industry which collects about a third of its income from the beaches and isles of the Andaman Sea.