Phi Phi Island, Jan. 2 (AFP): This one-time idyllic island immortalised in a Hollywood movie is now a scene from hell with decomposed bodies still being pulled from the rubble and the stench of death in the air.

Hundreds of rescue workers were today combing through the devastation on the tiny island, most wearing face masks to ward off the smell. They used diggers and backhoes to untangle the debris of what was once a thriving community of hotels, bungalows, restaurants and shops.

?It is a big mess here. The more we dig and search the more we find,? navy lieutenant Sura Bunchongehit, 29, told AFP near a water treatment plant, where bloated and decomposed corpses were still being discovered a week after the tsunamis hit Phuket.

?This is the biggest tragedy I have ever had to deal with,? he added. ?We hoped to finish finding the bodies yesterday but we keep finding more.?

Yesterday, nearly 600 bodies had been found on Phi Phi. About 141 were foreigners and 157 were Thais. The rest could not be identified.

The images are a world away from the Phi Phi paradise depicted in The Beach, starring Leonardo DiCaprio as a naive backpacker swept up in an isolationist community gone awry.

There were 1,961 still missing from Phi Phi, of whom 1,312 were Thai and 649 were foreigners, said Sutham, who is tasked with overseeing recovery operations in Krabi province, of which Phi Phi is a part.