13 hours Ago By The Telegraph
Tearful mourners across Asia have commemorated the two decades ago when . On December 26, 2004, a 9.1-magnitude earthquake off Indonesia’s western tip generated a series of massive waves that pummelled the coastline of 14 countries from Indonesia to Somalia in one of the world’s worst natural disasters.
More than 170,000 people died in Indonesia. In Indonesia’s Aceh province, where more than 100,000 people were killed, a siren rang out at the Baiturrahman Grand Mosque to begin a series of memorials around the region including in , India and Thailand, which the tsunami hit hours later. “I thought it was doomsday,” said Hasnawati, a 54-year-old teacher who goes by one name, at the Indonesian mosque, which was damaged by the tsunami.
“On a Sunday morning where our family were all laughing together, suddenly a disaster struck and everything’s gone. I can’t describe it with words.” Some mourners sat, cried and placed flowers at Aceh’s Ulee Lheue mass grave, where around 14,000 are buried, while some villages held their own prayers around the province as they remembered the tragedy that devastated entire communities.
Indonesians will later visit a larger mass grave and hold a communal prayer in provincial capital Banda Aceh, while beachside memorials and religious ceremonies were starting in Sri Lanka, India and Thailand, some of the worst-hit countries. Victims of waves as high as 30 metres (98ft) included many foreign tourists celebrating Christmas on the region’s sun-kissed beaches. The seabed being ripped open pushed waves at double the speed of a bullet train, crossing the Indian Ocean within hours.
In Thailand, where half of the more than 5,000 dead were , commemorations began early in Ban Nam Khem, the country’s worst-hit village. Tearful relatives of the dead laid flowers and wreaths at a curved wall in the shape of a tsunami wave with plaques bearing victims’ names. Napaporn Pakawan, 55, lost her older sister and a niece in the tragedy.
“I feel dismay. I come here every year,” she told AFP news agency in the village. “Times flies but time is slow in our mind.
” Unofficial beachside vigils were also expected to accompany a Thai government memorial ceremony. A total of 226,408 people died as a result of the tsunami, according to EM-DAT, a recognised global disaster database. There was , giving little time for evacuation, despite the hours-long gaps between the waves striking different continents.
But today, a sophisticated network of monitoring stations has cut down warning times. Indonesia suffered the highest death toll, with more than 160,000 people killed along its western coast. “It feels like it just happened yesterday.
Whenever I am reminded of it, it feels like all the blood rushes out of my body,” said Nilawati, a 60-year-old Indonesian housewife who lost her son and mother. The rebuilding efforts were made possible by the support of international donors and organisations, which contributed significant funds to help the region recover. Schools, hospitals, and essential infrastructure destroyed by the disaster have been reconstructed.
The disaster also ended a decades-long separatist conflict in Aceh, with a peace deal between rebels and Jakarta struck less than a year later. In Sri Lanka, where more than 35,000 people died, survivors and relatives were to gather to remember about 1,000 victims killed when waves derailed a passenger train. The mourners will board the restored Ocean Queen Express and head to Peraliya – the spot where it was ripped from the tracks, about 90 kilometres (56 miles) south of Colombo.
A brief religious ceremony will be held with relatives of the dead, while Buddhist, Hindu, Christian and Muslim ceremonies will also commemorate victims across the South Asian island nation. Nearly 300 people were killed as far away as Somalia, as well as more than 100 in the Maldives and dozens in Malaysia and Myanmar. “My children, wife, father, mother, all of my siblings were swept away,” said Indonesian survivor and fisherman Baharuddin Zainun, 70.
“The same tragedy was felt by others as well. We feel the same feelings.”.
