A couple have spoken of the emotionally-draining experience of working as volunteers inside Ground Zero in New York.

Nigel and Pamela Lunt, from Fordingbridge, described the remains of the World Trade Centre, the grave of 4,000 people, as being like "hell on earth."

The couple gave up part of their three-day break in Manhattan to support the emergency teams clearing the wreckage.

The shift, from 4pm to midnight on Tuesday, had been arranged through the American Red Cross.

Nigel's sister Beverley works in Manhattan and is a volunteer with the organisation.

The couple met officials at the Red Cross Centre in Brooklyn to sign security and ID papers before being bussed to respite centre number three at the Marriott Hotel within the zone.

Nigel, 48, helped ferry food supplies into Ground Zero from the caterers stationed outside the perimeter.

Pam, 44, a travel agent, worked on the reception, greeting workers as they came on shift and directing them to meal and rest areas.

The couple spoke as they flew back into Bournemouth from New York on Wednesday at the end of a three-day holiday charter.

Other volunteers on their team helped serve the food, wash up, scrub floors and carry out a whole host of tasks. Many work for firms based inside the Twin Towers and lost colleagues in the horror.

The emergency teams included fire crews, demolition workers, police officers, supervisors and FBI investigators, all supported by trauma teams and chaplains.

"It wasn't hard work physically but mentally it was very draining." said Nigel.

"One of the hardest things was seeing the faces of the emergency crews as they came off shift.

"You couldn't talk to them. They were very polite but we were told firmly not to try to engage them in conversation about what they had seen or done."

The couple went down to Ground Zero in the morning to prepare themselves for their shift. "From outside the security barriers you don't get any real impression of the scale of the devastation because you only see glimpses of it," said Pam.

"You can only really see it once you are inside the zone. That's when the vast scale of the mess hits you. It's muddy, dirty, noisy, dusty and there's the smell."

Nigel said there was no colour in the wreckage of Ground Zero. Everything was framed in black and white.

He said firefighters go through two pairs of boots each every night because the twisted metal is so hot that it melts the soles.

He even saw a bodybag draped in the Stars and Stripes being taken away.

But the most moving images were to be found on the faces of the rescue workers who no longer have anyone to rescue.

"They are totally exhausted but determined to carry on," said Nigel. "They want to see it through.

"One firefighter came into the reception. His face had no expression at all. He just sat down in a corner by himself, tears streaming down his cheeks. A colleague went up, spoke to him quietly for a few seconds and then left him alone."

Nigel said the couple's experience, albeit brief, would live with them forever.

"I am very pleased to have been able to help in a very small way but it's something I never want to repeat," he said.

Nearly ten weeks after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre, fires are still burning underground and millions of tons of twisted metal and rubble remains to be cleared. The work, which goes on around the clock, is expected to take up to a year.

New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani has yielded to the public fascination with the site and announced it is to become a tourist attraction.

"People have a very legitimate and honest interest in wanting to be able to see it," he admitted.