December 26, 2005

Asia to mark tsunami anniversary with prayers, silence

By Tomi Soetjipto

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia (Reuters) - Mourners across the world gathered on Monday along ravaged Indian Ocean coastlines on Monday to remember more than 231,000 people who died in last year's tsunami.

A year on, a huge reconstruction operation has brought hope to hundreds of thousands living in temporary shelters, but the sorrow and pain from one of nature's most ferocious episodes remains strong -- and fears that monster waves could come again.

The flame from a candle flickers in front of pictures of tsunami victims at Ban Mai Khao cemetery in Phuket province, about 862 km south of Bangkok December 25, 2005. (REUTERS/Chaiwat Subprasom)

"We think about the lost lives, lost property and lost jobs" said 19-year-old Kanagalingan Janenthra in Sri Lanka's eastern town of Batticaloa."We are in fear. Some of us think it might come again. The weather is the same as it was last year."

In a flattened coastal suburb of Banda Aceh, capital of Indonesia's Aceh province, Yudhoyono said: "In this wide open space ... under the blue sky, we stand together as God's children. It was under the same blue sky exactly a year ago that mother earth unleashed the most destructive power among us."

The tsunami left more than 231,000 dead or missing in 13 Indian Ocean countries -- nearly three quarters of them in Aceh, on the northern tip of Sumatra.

The tsunami also made 1.8 million homeless.

While remembering the dead, Yudhoyono said it was also time to look toward the future.

"Today, tomorrow and the day after will not be about suffering because we are here also to honour those who survived ... they all want to rebuild their lives. You will see the tsunami survivors everywhere."

AID PLEDGES $13.6 BILLION

The leader of the world's fourth most populous nation thanked the international community for its help, but said "there is still much more to be done".

Public and private aid pledges totalled $13.6 billion, according to the United Nations, making it the most generously funded humanitarian effort in history.

A 9.15 magnitude undersea earthquake off Sumatra island, the strongest in four decades, triggered the tsunami, which smashed into shorelines as far away as East Africa.

The series of tsunami waves, up to 10 metres (33 feet) high, swept holidaymakers off beaches, smashed hotels and destroyed towns and villages in Aceh, Sri Lanka, India and southern Thailand.

In Sri Lanka's southern town of Peraliya, Hindu, Christian, Buddhist and Muslim priests chanted blessings at the site where 1,000 people died when their train was bowled over by the tsunami.

The Sri Lankan flag was lowered to half-mast as new President Mahinda Rajapakse oversaw two minutes' silence to mark the moment the tsunami hit, surrounded by towering palm trees and close to the battered shore peppered with bare concrete foundations where homes were razed to the ground.

Rajapakse placed a floral wreath at the foot of a cresting wave-shaped memorial as foreign ambassadors and dignitaries looked on. Soldiers and sailors stood to attention, bare-chested traditional drummers looked on and a choir sang tsunami songs.

WRECKED TRAIN REMOVED

Three rusty, crumpled train carriages left there as a memorial -- and which became a tourist stop-off on the road south -- have since been removed.

In eastern Sri Lanka, the area of the island that bore the brunt of the wave -- and which is still reeling from two decades of war halted by a 2002 truce diplomats say may now be stretched to breaking point -- coastal villages set up small shrines with photographs of the dead.

"We are also making some food to distribute to people," said 30-year-old Krishanthi Fernando, standing by the remains of her family's 10-room hotel in the tsunami-ravaged village of Karunakalichully in Batticaloa.

"We'd like to build back here but we're afraid about a war," added Fernando, whose mother was killed in the disaster.

On the island's south coast, villagers held vigils with coconut oil lamps and Buddhist monks in saffron robes chanted blessings. White flags of mourning line the roads. White sand beaches were empty along the southern tourist drag. "If it were not for the foreign aid, people on the coast would not have lived to commemorate today," said cinnamon peeler Nayana Nilmini.

(Additional reporting by Peter Apps in BATTICALOA, Simon Gardner in COLOMBO and Darren Schuettler in PHUKET)

News Poll

Latest Jobs from Star-Jobs

Latest from StarProperty