In the mist-draped mountains of Sri Lanka's tea country, rescuers were still plucking bodies from the reddish-brown mud on Tuesday after last week's cyclone, the island's worst natural disaster in decades.

At least 465 people were killed, according to disaster officials, with another 366 missing.

Sri Lanka's Air Force has been combing the landslide-struck landscape, surveying the damage and ferrying food and other essential supplies to marooned residents.

Though the rain has stopped, recovery has just begun.

As the first journalist for foreign media to join a relief mission over the tea-growing region, AFP photographer Ishara Kodikara saw a swathe of the country destroyed after slips of soil flattened everything in their paths, including roads and the vehicles that were on them.

The r

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