A Gargrave parish councillor, who was feared missing in Sri Lanka, has returned home after helping with the aid effort on the island.

Colin Pickles, of South Street, travelled out to Sri Lanka on December 19 for a month's holiday. When the tsunami struck, he was completing a tour of the island and was in Nuwara Eliya in the Highlands which is surrounded by tea plantations.

However, instead of returning home to Gargrave he decided to stay on and offer his help to the aid effort.

Initially all the tour groups were ordered to go back to the capital, Colombo, where mattresses had been put down in the city's Bandaranaike stadium.

Mr Pickles said that while many people were keen to leave the area as soon as possible, he stayed on recognising that the aid agencies were taking some time to get to the devastated areas.

Two charities were operating within the country, Save the Children and Oxfam, but they were small groups who were not able to cope with a major disaster.

Mr Pickles decided to assist them, by helping to wrap the bodies of dead babies in sheets so that they could be stored in a fridge and washing other corpses.

"The sights that I have seen I never want to see again," he said.

Mr Pickles explained that people were monitoring the tides to see what would be brought ashore.

The first tide brought saris and the like, the second brought plastic items, the third brought furniture and the fourth tide brought in dead bodies. "I have never seen anything like it," said Mr Pickles

However once the aid agencies arrived all the volunteers stepped back.

Mr Pickles said that a great deal of work was going on, much of it by the Sri Lankans themselves.

"The people of Sri Lanka are all working together in harmony. I was very impressed by that. They are doing a lot to help themselves, not just sitting back moaning," he explained.

On his return to the UK, Mr Pickles was met by police and other officials at Heathrow who are continuing to make inquiries about other missing British nationals.

Also returning home this week was a former pupil of Aireville School who travelled to Sri Lanka to help treat victims of the tsunami.

Jane Bremnath, 51, travelled out to Sri Lanka on December 30 after receiving a phone call from her sister-in-law, Shobana Ratnabal, asking if she would go to the disaster area.

Along with medical students from various London hospitals, Mrs Bremnath, a trained nurse who now lives in Buckinghamshire, flew to Colombo with 11 suitcases filled with medical supplies.

After landing in the capital, the team spent three days battling through torrential monsoon rains to the eastern region of Batticaloa.

Mrs Bremnath said that the first camp she visited was well organised and had been set up by a Catholic priest with the help of a local doctor. She said that people were living in tents and were split into three areas to try to minimise the spread of disease.

The next camp had not been visited by a medical team before and they had to treat a number of people with leg injuries.

Mrs Bremnath said here the devastation was not as bad as she had expected. However she later visited the beaches and she was left speechless by the impact of the tsunami..

"Everything has just completely disappeared. The smell of human decay is in the air."

Mrs Bremnath is concerned about the lasting psychological effect that the tsunami will have on the people of Sri Lanka. She explained that one elderly lady told her that she had lost her entire family.

"The people in the camps and in the hospitals are still in shock. They don't know what to do," she added.