Instead, there was nothing but eerie emptiness. The powerful lights of the scientists' submersible vehicle, piercing through the darkness, showed no trace of anything living. A scientist working on the Census of Marine Life project, Ron O'Dor, of Dalhousie University in Canada, said: "You'd expect a site like this to be quickly recolonised, but that hasn't happened. It's unprecedented."

The scientists teamed with television crews from the BBC and Discovery Channel to investigate the heart of the deadliest tsunami on record. On Boxing Day last year an earthquake with a magnitude of 9.3 tore the earth apart off the west coast of Sumatra. Part of the ocean floor was thrust up to create a 40-metre-high undersea cliff that then collapsed. Huge volumes of water were displaced in the process, creating the giant waves that killed more than 270,000 people. "Normally, when you go to the bottom of the sea anywhere and take a sample or look around, there's always something alive," Professor O'Dor said. "But five months after the earthquake, this entire plain, created by the collapse of the cliff, was essentially devoid of life."

The group had expected to find several species of fish, plus cephalopods, sea cucumbers, brittle stars, corals and sponges, crustaceans and worms. Professor O'Dor thought the collapsing cliff had buried the food sources of bottom feeders, which in turn had an effect on larger predators. "No one has ever got to a site like this so quickly before," he said. "It may just be that it takes a while for things to get back to normal. The sea is very cold at this depth, and typically the speed of life is proportional to temperature. Nothing happens very fast at 4C."

The tsunami epicentre findings were included in a report marking the halfway point in an ambitious project to catalogue all life in the oceans by 2010. About 1700 scientists from 73 countries are taking part in the project. So far they have electronically tagged almost 2000 animals from 21 species, including sharks, fish, birds, turtles, seals and sea lions. Large numbers of new species have also been discovered in some of the deepest and remotest corners of the ocean.

Scientists believe that all the marine species known at present may only account for about a tenth of those that exist. Press Association

Girl's body was found, says official

PHUKET: A Thai-German couple who say they are certain their missing daughter is still alive nearly one year after the tsunami were given her positively identified corpse months ago, a Thai official says. PHUKET: A Thai-German couple who say they are certain their missing daughter is still alive nearly one year after the tsunami were given her positively identified corpse months ago, a Thai official says. Sascha and Patchara Meissmer, last week said they were certain a girl they have seen in a grainy photograph on a website taken after the tsunami was their five-year-old daughter Solitaire.

They were scheduled to meet the governor of Phuket yesterday to seek his help in finding her. But Colonel Khemarin Saisiri, who heads the victim identification effort, said the parents took the body of Solitaire on August 8 for cremation in the province of Loei. The girl was identified by DNA testing that was confirmed by Thai and German officials.

Colonel Khemarin said he had personally handed the parents compensation funds for the loss of their child. Associated Press