There have been many major natural disasters but the one which, perhaps, has created most impact in the past decade was the Asian Tsunami.

At 0059 GMT on 26 December 2004, a magnitude 9.3 earthquake ripped apart the seafloor off the coast of northwest Sumatra. It unleashed a devastating tsunami that travelled thousands of kilometres across the Indian Ocean, taking the lives of more than 200,000 people in countries as far apart as Indonesia, the Maldives, Sri Lanka and Somalia.

The west coast of Thailand was severely hit, including some outlying islands and the tourist resorts near Phuket. Overall 5,395 people have been confirmed dead. They include about 2,400 foreigners from 36 countries and the number of people still missing exceeds 2,800.

Help and aid came from across the globe and a number of agencies were involved in the search and recovery phase of the disaster. Identification and repatriation of the victims was an immense task - DNA was one of the techniques that was used. However even now there remain many that have not been formally identified.

Natural disasters do not observe geographic rules - they can occur anywhere - from Hurrican Katrina in the USA, to bushfires in Australia, from earthquakes in Sichuan, China to flooding in Mozambique, from the 2003 heatwave in Europe to Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar (Burma).