Kattrina viewed from abroad

"It's so heartbreaking to see how helpless America has become," she said. "You're not strong any more. You can't even save your own countrymen and there you are, out there trying to control the world." She said there was no excuse in a nation like America for the suffering and apparent incompetence she had seen on television.

"Why are people hungry?" she said. "That really bothers me. Why are they hungry? The first thing you do, you feed them."

She added: "The other thing that bothers me is how capitalism continues its merry way in the light of a disaster like this, with gas prices going up sky high. It's so opportunistic. Is this America? Is this the American way?"

Several people were struck by the social and racial divisions that have come to the surface, a side of America that clashes with the common view of a rich, advanced nation.

"It came to my mind that I didn't see that many whites on television," said Anusart Suwanmongkol, the managing director of a hotel in Pattani, Thailand.

"What you saw was the helpless, the infirm, the poor and the old - mostly black, the underclass," he said. "It's quite a powerful image on television."