A couple living in the North-East lost six members of their close family in the Asian tsunami.

Sri Lankan-born Arumugam and Chandradevi Yokachandran spoke of their utter devastation that their relatives have been confirmed as dead.

Another relative, Mr Yokachandran's brother, is still missing.

But their one comfort is that their son, Kokilan, 12, who was living with his grandmother, is alive.

"By God's grace my son survived," Mr Yokachandran said.

The couple who live in Aire Street, Middlesbrough, hail from a Tamil fishing community in Uduthurai on the northern tip of Sri Lanka.

When the tsunami hit on Boxing Day it completely destroyed the coastal village where Mr Yokachandran was born and brought up.

After he first heard about the disaster Mr Yokachandran, 34, sat watching a satellite Tamil TV network which relayed hours of terrible images of the devastation.

A phone call he received last Monday confirmed six family members were missing presumed dead.

Fears were confirmed when the names of those who had perished were flashed up on the TV network.

It included the names of Mr Yokachandran's 19-year-old sister Komathy, his 56-year-old mother Pushpamalar and his 60-year-old mother-in-law Nesamany Thankavadivez.

Mrs Yokachandran also lost her 40-year-old sister-in-law and two nieces, aged 17 and 19. At least two hundred from her village died.

The family are asylum seekers who have lived in Middlesbrough for nine months after being dispersed here by the Home Office.

They have two children, Kunalan, six, and Nevitha, seven months, living in Middlesbrough.

Previously they lived in London for four years. Mr Yokachandran said he had been tortured by the Sri Lankan government who accused him of being a Tamil Tiger.

The family are now being offered emotional support by the North-East Tamil Community Society.

Sivagnanam Ravindram, a Corus engineer from Yarm, is acting as an interpreter.

Mr Ravindram said: "It is such a terrible tragedy. Now we want to help the family be reunited, to bring his son, who is homeless and has no one left in Sri Lanka, to Middlesbrough."

Meanwhile, the family of missing North-East backpacker Leanne Cox have travelled to Thailand to try to find her.

Her heartbroken mother Jean has pinned photographs of Leanne on the huge notice boards already bearing hundreds of pictures of missing people.

But British embassy volunteer staff have told her all the tsunami survivors have been identified and Leanne is not one of them.