The coastal villages near Lamno have for generations been famed for their fair-skinned, blond-haired and even blue-eyed people, testimony to the European sailors' presence some four centuries ago.

But although some of the fair-skinned locals are still around, people here say that not one of the blue-eyed descendants survived December's devastating tsunami, in which some 230,000 people from Aceh are believed to have perished.

"There were only a dozen or so of them in each village and they're all dead," says Jamil, a worker from the hamlet of Ujong Muloh, not far from Lamno on the west coast of the province.

Along the miles of battered coastline, palm trees and whole houses have been swept away by the waves. Paddy fields have become salt-encrusted islands and women wearing matted palm-leaf hats spend their days burning washed up debris on the beach.

The only thing that really links the fair skinned people of Lamno to their genetic line is their nickname among the locals, who refer them simply as 'the Portuguese'.

Farmers and fishermen, Muslim rather than Christian and speaking Acehnese dialect rather than the official Bahasa Indonesia, they have been part of the rich local ethnic tapestry for generations and have been absorbed into it completely.

The Portuguese arrived in Indonesia in the 16th century, before being chased out by Dutch colonial forces.

"There were families with blue eyes. They used to live by the sea but they all died," explains another local, echoing a familiar refrain among the temporary camps around Lamno where people uprooted from their homes and livelihoods now live.

In the local school in Meutara, two or three children look more like European kids than Indonesians, but none of them has blue eyes.

Too young to attend classes, Rauzatul Jannah has a shock of blonde hair that would let her pass for a Scandinavian child. The three-year-old is well known in the area for it and in the wake of the tsunami her fame is only set to grow.

In the small port of Glee Jong, Wardiah, 25, scratches an outline in the ground where a simple wooden building used to stand. "Over there there used to be a family of people with blond hair and blue eyes, but they died."

She has features like other locals but surprisingly fair skin. "People ask me where I'm from and I tell them I'm from Lamno," she explains.

Girls from the area have always drawn the attention of neighbouring Indonesians. Suitors have for years been visiting the region in the hope of leaving with a bride.

According to local legend, the "women with dolls' eyes" were sometimes stolen away against their will by suitors to other parts of the archipelago.

Djunaidi, 20, has pale skin. At school kids would call him the albino, he says.

While three out of four people from the village were killed in the tsunami, he explains how he was able to reach the hills in time. He says all of his pale-skinned friends died in the tragedy.

Cut Chairiah, 36, a local official recounts how during traditional Muslim festivals, Glee Jong filled with people's visiting relatives, giving the impression the village had been taken over by Europeans.

On the outskirts of Lamno, volunteers are still busy collecting the decomposing bodies of those killed two months ago. None of them says they've seen any blue-eyed survivors.

"There used to be some very pretty boys and girls here. None of them survived," a toothless and resigned fisherman says.

One question tempting locals is whether the recessive blue eyes will again be thrown up by the gene pool and return to the region one of its most precious and beautiful treasures.

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