A SWINDON aid worker has returned from Sri Lanka after helping to rebuild the country's fishing industry.

Nick Cooper, 39, of Old Town, travelled to the devastated eastern side of the island weeks after the tsunami struck on Boxing Day.

And the mechanical engineer is hoping to return to the country next year to check the progress of the project.

Mr Cooper flew to Colombo in Sri Lanka with international humanitarian organisation, Goal, a fortnight after the disaster.

Just 24 hours later he was in Ampara and had started clearing rubble from streets.

The former soldier, who served with the Royal Electrical Mechanical Engineers, said: "I didn't really have any expectations of what I was going to see when I arrived.

"The really peculiar thing was how black and white it was.

"One side of the road was totally devastated and the other was fine. It really was as stark as that."

Mr Cooper was working in a team of 12. Once the initial emergency operation was over teams began rebuilding work.

His team split the area into two sections, one for coastal clearance and the other to begin rebuilding the fishing industry.

He said: "We had so much money that we could have bought brand new boats but instead we taught people boat building skills.

"Their dynamic for self help was great. It's much better to teach the locals to take over the projects themselves.

"This is the best thing about the aid it's going straight to the people who need it."

Goal set up a cash-for-work programme, which paid people the local labour rate to clear rubble away from streets and to clear wells.

Mr Cooper said: "We had around 200 locals working for us and we had to pay each one at the end of every day.

"This is a really good scheme because the cash goes directly into the hands of the people who need it most."

Mr Cooper's team lived in a four-storey concrete house, with a flat roof, about 1,500 metres away from the coast.

He said: "One morning there was a scare there was going to be another tsunami.

"Everyone climbed up on to the roofs of their buildings.

"Within a few hours we had managed to get all of our team back and up on the roof."

Mr Cooper is hoping to return to Sri Lanka in January next year to see how much progress has been made.

He would like to thank Swindon companies for their financial support, including Communicate IT, WB Photographics, the Cross Street Surgery, the Advertiser and Andy Marcer at The Beehive.

Lyndsay Scanlan