Some 20 bodies of people who were killed in the Dec. 26 tsunami were discovered in southern Sri Lanka on Saturday, police said.

Bodies which were found six weeks after the disaster were in a highly decomposed state, some of them reduced to skeletal remains.

The police at Meetiyagoda said the residents had alerted the police of the bodies.

All of them were stuck in clay pits and, with the dry weather prevailing in the area, the receding water levels in the pits had forced the skeletal remains to surface.

The site is in close proximity to site of the passenger train tragedy where about 1,000 commuters perished when the raging tsunami hit the southern city of Matara bound train from capital Colombo on the morning of Dec. 26.

The tsunami killed more than 30,000 and displaced nearly one million Sri Lankans.

(Xinhua News Agency February 13, 2005)