A BATCHLEY couple fear a Sri Lankan woman they fostered as a child may have been a victim of the Asian tsunami disaster which killed at least 150,000.

Jim and Jill Blundell have been desperately trying to contact Shiromi Gamage, who along with 20 other children was brought to the now defunct National Hospital of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery in Tardebigge in 1990 for specialist burns treatment.

All the children were fostered out to families in Redditch following an appeal in the Advertiser and stayed about nine months while they underwent plastic surgery. Mr and Mrs Blundell fostered two children at the time - Shiromi and Damayanthe.

Shiromi, who is 27 and now a mother herself, wrote to Mr and Mrs Blundell from her seaside village near Mirissa on the southern tip of Sri Lanka just two weeks before the devastating wave.

In her last letter, she still referred to the kindly couple as Mom and Dad and wrote about how fondly she remembered them and their other children.

Mr Blundell, 83, of Rowan Road, said: "We don't know what to think at the moment. I know the area where Shiromi lived was right on the sea front. But apparently the area has been flattened for two miles inland.

''Assuming that is true, then we do have a bad feeling."

Mr Blundell, a retired engineer for Hymatic, and his wife were life-long foster parents, taking in many children over the years, so they jumped at the chance of fostering the Sri Lankan burns victims in 1990.

They last heard from Damayanthe about four years ago and do not know whether she too has been affected by the tsunami because they are unsure of her last address.

The couple's hopes were raised temporarily when their daughter, Helen, who is contacting various organisations for information, received an e-mail from a stranger claiming Shiromi and her family had made it to safety.

But they have no way of authenticating the e-mail as genuine and have heard nothing since.

"We don't know what to believe or who else to contact," said Mr Blundell.