THE chairman of a Bolton cricket club, who is remaining in Sri Lanka to help the massive aid effort, is acting as an English interpreter assisting with the distribuition of supplies to the crisis hit country.

Ron Fallows, from Astley Bridge Cricket Club, spoke to the Bolton Evening News as he surveyed the destruction caused by the huge tidal waves on the sun-kissed South Asian island.

The 56-year-old is helping to co-ordinate the lorries full of aid that are starting to arrive in the capital Colombo. But many of the locals are struggling to direct the blankets, food and water to where they are most needed because the process is being carried out in English.

He said: "Much of the aid is labelled in a language that the natives are not familiar with.

"So I'm better equipped than some of them for putting things on the relevant lorries.

"I've been working with the local radio stations to help them organise the relief effort."

Mr Fallows, who lives in Sharples, has decided to remain in the stricken country until January 14 to help survivors.

He had been visiting the Sri Lankan capital Colombo as a guest of the Bolton club's cricket professional, Amal Dalugoda.

He narrowly escaped the tidal waves by taking a detour away from a coastal road just minutes before the wave struck.He was at the home of Mr Dalugoda's friend, on higher ground, and watched cars and lorries being washed away as the waters rushed in from the sea.