There is no way on earth of preparing for the visions of hell in City Hall in Phuket Town, where an emergency relief centre has been set up to help the victims of the St Stephen's Day tsunami which devastated the resort of Phuket in southern Thailand.
This was supposed to be paradise.
Walking through the tents, you come to a wall of photographs of the missing, a catalogue of horror similar to the one outside the World Trade Centre after September 11th. So many children are in the photographs - beautiful Swedish babies and German toddlers and cheeky young British boys - it's heartbreaking. Wedding photos, beach photos taken just hours before the tsunami, graduation pictures.
Driving from the airport to the town, the scattering of beach furniture all over what used to be a bustling resort shows just how powerful was the tsunami which tore up the western coast of Phuket Island.
Everyone on Phuket is traumatised in some way by they just call "the Wave".
In parts it looks like a giant hand scooped up chunks of the shoreline and carelessly tossed them at the landscape behind. You remember how often the word "paradise" appears in advertising blurbs for Phuket - and it is paradise. The ironies are just too cruel to bear when you see this gorgeous island turned into a hell.
One wall of photographs in the centre features a horrifying tableau of photographs of unidentified dead, young and old. Local officials, fearful of an epidemic, want to bury the rapidly-decomposing bodies quickly, while foreign governments want to make sure they don't get buried before they have been identified.
Hundreds of people mill around, looking for information, particularly about those on the outlying islands. The embassies of many countries have desks set up, including one manned by Ireland's Ambassador to Thailand and Malaysia, Mr Dan Mulhall, and his team.
As we drive along the seafront near Karala, we pass mountains of detritus, benches, tables, even cars. One green Mazda looks like it has been picked up by the same giant hand and dropped, nose down, from a huge height.
In one place where there used to be beach bungalows in a development called Karala CoCo Hut, there is nothing left but sticks. In a small lake opposite, they are dredging for more bodies, which keep appearing.
A soldier, wearing a mask against the stench, tells us they've only turned up a few cars so far and a lot of palm trees, but no bodies have yet been found.
By night, there are few lights on the street other than the big ones illuminating the teams cleaning up the mess. But the hazy glow picks out a single Birkenstock sandal outside the Delphine foot massage shop. And a shamrock dangling from what was once an Irish bar.