Regardless of what religion you may have been, if you were one of the thousands who died when Sunday's tsunami struck the Maruthamunai quarter of Kalmunai on Sri Lanka's east coast, chances are you were buried a Muslim.
The area is home to a majority 8,000-plus Muslim families, but there are also several thousand Buddhist and Hindus -- Sri Lanka's majority religions -- in homes along the narrow street across a 3 km (2 mile) stretch of ocean front.
On Thursday, teams of Muslim men -- most wearing prayer caps and surgical masks -- were picking through the remains of their community, looking for corpses to bury.
They were actually sniffing them out.
"What we do is walk around until you can smell that smell," said Ahmed Hussain Yacoub, a community leader. "Then we dig under the rubble."
The men had nothing but a few crowbars, shovels and their bare hands with which to dig for corpses buried beneath what had become of their homes or businesses.
They would lift big granite rocks above their heads and bring them crashing down on large slabs of concrete, smashing them into pieces that could be carried off by two or three men.
Once they found a body, another group of men -- mouths and noses protected by surgical masks and wearing rubber gloves -- would wrap it in whatever material at hand before carrying it on a stretcher to a series of mass graves dug on the beach.
GENERAL CAN'T HELP
There are seven graves in the golden sands, now littered with debris from the devastating wave. Each is about 15 metres (45 feet) long by two metres (six feet) wide and about four feet deep. Each can hold around 30 bodies, and four were filled in.
According to tradition, a Muslim must be buried before nightfall the day after he dies, so the fact that bodies still remain beneath the rubble of their community is a cause of great anguish for local people.
"We have had no help from the government at all," said Haji Tariq Mohammed. "We need bulldozers to help clear this debris".
While a Reuters team was at the site, a convoy of four new green Toyota Landcruisers arrived on the scene and the commander of the eastern region, General Gamini Hettiarachchi, sprang out, surrounded by a posse of bodyguards, some wrinkling their noses against the smell.
The general did not speak to anyone on the beach, but when told of the residents' complaints, he told Reuters: "We are doing what we can, but you know we don't have a strong presence here."
Kalmunai lies in the heart of Amparai district, where the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels have a strong presence and police stations and army posts in the area sit behind heavily guarded fortifications.
The men searching for corpses scarcely looked in the general's direction. One rolled his eyes as they convoy retreated.
The bodies that Reuters saw being unearthed on Thursday had been crushed beyond recognition, but were nevertheless treated with dignity and respect by the Muslim men -- even though they accepted they might be burying Buddhists or Hindus.
"It is almost certain others are here," said Haji Tariq, after leading the corpses, men and diggers in a prayer ceremony after the latest body was added to the mass grave.
"No matter. Once we have prayed for them, they all become Muslims," he said."