Three years after Indian Ocean nations were lashed by massive tsunamis, sombre ceremonies were held Wednesday to recall those lost in one of the worst natural catastrophes in modern times.
In Indonesia, mass prayers were held outdoors and at mosques across Aceh, the staunchly Muslim province at the northern tip of Sumatra island where 168,000 lives were claimed by the earthquake-triggered walls of water.
The toll here was more than half the 220,000 killed in a dozen nations, including Sri Lanka, India and Thailand, with thousands of unidentified victims buried in mass graves hastily dug in the disaster's aftermath. Wednesday's main ceremony was held outdoors at a village on the outskirts of Calang, one of the areas of Aceh obliterated in the disaster.
"I came here to pray together with other residents. I pray for my wife and my child who died in the tsunami, hoping they are now resting in peace," said Alimudin, a 61-year-old retired local government official.
Aceh governor Irwandi Yusuf, a former rebel fighter, told about 1,000 residents, school children and officials that he hoped "we can learn from the tragedy to improve our piety towards God." "Let us leave behind all our tears and work together to rebuild Aceh, hoping that one day we can repay our 'debt' to the international community," he said.
The international community pledged more than seven-billion dollars to help reconstruction in Aceh, which is well on track towards completion. Yusuf, who was detained in a jail that was destroyed by the tsunami, was elected in December last year following a historic peace pact spurred on by the disaster-one of its few silver linings-that saw a 29-year separatist conflict end.
Also in Indonesia, a dramatic drill simulating a tsunami strike was held in Java's coastal province of Banten involving around 9,000 residents, local television reported. The simulation, designed to test a tsunami warning system gradually being rolled out, saw hundreds of students, along with residents clutching children, rush to higher ground assailed by wailing sirens.
"This country is vulnerable to tsunami threats. Let us pray to God for this country to be kept safe from tsunamis," President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said after observing the exercise. Sri Lanka, which suffered 31,000 deaths, marked the anniversary by opening a showpiece bridge in the southern coastal town of Matara, gifted by South Korea.
President Mahinda Rajapakse observed two minutes of silence at 9:25 am, the time when the first giant waves lashed the coastline in a disaster that also displaced a million people on the island.
Sri Lanka's post-tsunami reconstruction work has been dogged by corruption and renewed fighting that has blocked relief to survivors, with less than a fifth of the money pledged properly accounted for, according to watchdogs. In India, where more than 16,000 people died, thousands of fishing families who survived the avalanche of water gathered on beaches to remember the dead.
Parents who lost children thronged local beaches and fishing hamlets in India's worst-hit Nagapattinam district, where around 6,500 people died in southern Tamil Nadu state.
"The memorial today is just a symbol for me where all of us collect to grieve together," said Kaveri, 37, who lost a son and daughter when the tsunami hit the fishing hamlet of Keechankuppam. "But then we are grieving everyday." Tens of thousands of Indians lost huts in the disaster and rights groups say more than 20,000 tsunami-affected families are still waiting for new homes.
Thousands of candles flickered in the night by Thailand's Andaman Sea in memory of the 5,400 people killed in the kingdom, half of whom were foreign holiday-makers. About 700 people from Thailand and abroad, including those who lost loved ones in the tragedy, first laid flowers at the sea's edge on Phuket's Patong beach, before lighting 10,000 candles along a two-kilometre stretch of sand.
"We will continue to grieve for the people. However, their memory lives on," Lennart Linner, Sweden's ambassador to Thailand, told the crowd. Hundreds of Swedes were killed in the disaster. After the low-key ceremony, attendees walked out onto the beach and cast the flowers representing the dead into the sea.
Comments
Comments are closed.