Poetic honour for young tsunami survivor

For two days and a night, nine-year-old Patiwat Khomklat clung to a tree trunk more than a mile off the Thai coast after last year's Indian Ocean tsunami dragged him out to sea.

Despite hunger, fatigue and the unnerving company of bodies in the water around him, he held on until a helicopter spotted him and plucked him to safety.

Next week, on the anniversary of the deadly tsunami, the young schoolboy’s astonishing will to survive will be recognised when he reads a poem before thousands of guests at a commemorative ceremony near the spot where his life almost ended.

The tsunami killed about 5,400 people on the Andaman Sea coast of Thailand, about half of them foreign tourists.