A Hampshire man and his girlfriend helped dozens of seriously injured people after the Thai island they are staying on was battered by tidal waves.

Using a pair of rusty scissors and ageing bandages, Andy Pugh and girlfriend, Jannet Erhahon, set to work trying to save the lives of people caught on Koh Phi Phi island when an earthquake struck on Sunday morning.

Tens of thousands of people lost their lives in low lying countries across south-east Asia and millions were left homeless when the earthquake off Indonesia set off tidal waves reaching 10 metres in height.

Andy and Jannet were on a boat called the Sea Angel when the waves hit.

Within minutes the Sea Angel was swamped with injured tourists who brought out on small boats from the island in a bid to get them to the nearest hospital on Phuket.

Andy said: "We pulled people from the water and the stories were horrific.

"We heard about people getting trapped under capsized boats and being smashed against the docks."

More on the tsunami disaster on page four and five of tonight's Daily Echo.