Thousands of saffron-robed Thai monks chanted and prayed for victims of the Indian Ocean tsunami on Saturday as Asia marked the fifth anniversary of one of history’s worst natural disasters.
The gathering of monks in Ban Nam Khem, a fishing village on Thailand’s Andaman Sea coast that lost nearly half its 5,000 people, was one of hundreds of solemn events across Asia in memory of the towering waves that crashed ashore with little warning on December 26, 2004, killing 220,000 in 13 countries.
In Indonesia’s Banda Aceh, about 100 people took part in a prayer ceremony close to a fishing boat that landed on the rooftop of a two-storey house after being swept miles inland.
Indonesia was the worst hit with the number of dead and missing over 168,000. Massive reconstruction aid in Banda Aceh has rebuilt a new city on top of the ruins, and many survivors are only now putting memories of the waves behind them.
Some villagers shed tears as they remembered the day their homes and lives were destroyed by the wall of water that rose as high as 30 metres, triggered by an undersea earthquake off the island of Sumatra.
“I will never forget it in all my life. After the earthquake, we ran out of the house and within minutes people screamed on seeing the towering water,” said Ambasiah, 40, owner of the house with the fishing boat where about 50 people took refuge. “When the water got higher, suddenly a boat landed on top of the house. We climbed and stayed there until afternoon. We saw the waves from atop.”
{{/usCountry}}“I will never forget it in all my life. After the earthquake, we ran out of the house and within minutes people screamed on seeing the towering water,” said Ambasiah, 40, owner of the house with the fishing boat where about 50 people took refuge. “When the water got higher, suddenly a boat landed on top of the house. We climbed and stayed there until afternoon. We saw the waves from atop.”
{{/usCountry}}Sri Lanka observed two minutes of silence to mark the fifth anniversary of the devastating tsunami, that killed over 31,000 people in the island nation.
In the southern city of Galle, where more than 1,000 people were killed after the tsunami swept away a passing train and buried at a nearby mass grave, relatives wept with flowers in their hands at a ceremony to remember the victims.
Frightened of the sea
Thailand’s Ban Nam Khem village is a shadow of its former self. Its once-thriving centre of dense waterfront stores, restaurants and wooden homes is gone, replaced with souvenir shops, a wave-shaped monument and a small building filled with photographs of the tsunami recovery effort.
Many former residents are now too frightened of the sea to rebuild close to the water. In Patong, a Thai beach resort village bustling with tourists, local artists performed traditional Thai songs and Buddhist monks chanted as tourists and locals gathered in a pavilion to look at photographs of the tsunami’s damage.
“We come and stay here because we are alive,” said Ruschitschka Adolf, a 73-year-old German who survived the tsunami, as his wife Katherina waded into Patong’s turquoise waters to lay white roses in the waves in memory of the dead.
Almost all of those killed were vacationing on or around the southern island of Phuket, a region that had contributed as much as 40 per cent of Thailand’s annual tourism income.
AID DRYING UP
Tsunami aid efforts have mostly finished, said Patrick Fuller, Tsunami Communications Coordinator at the Red Cross. “A lot of the physical reconstruction has ended. There are some major infrastructure projects that are still going on. There are some road projects, longer term projects. But all the housing projects are pretty much wrapped up,” he said.
The Red Cross built 51,000 houses, mostly in the Maldives and Indonesia. But locals say they need more than buildings, clean-water plants and other infrastructure.