Thailand's tsunami-hit Phuket island offers gory souvenirs

0 Comments | AFP, January, 2005

PHUKET, Thailand (AFP) — A macabre souvenir industry is emerging on Thailand's resort island of Phuket, with tsunami VCDs, t-shirts and gory pictures of bloated corpses floating in the sea being snapped up by both local residents and tourists.

The island's tourism industry has been hit by the calamity, which has killed more than 5,300 people, half of whom are Western holidaymakers, but photo shops, bookstores and souvenir shops are doing brisk business.

The largest photo shop in Phuket town centre offers prints of at least 30 different scenes of devastation in the southern coastal provinces battered by the December 26 earthquake and giant waves.

"This is the bestseller," a staffer at the Kodak Express shop told AFP, pointing to a picture showing scores of...