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December 26, 2024 | 01:03 pm
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Emotional ceremonies are taking place across Asia to remember the 220,000 lives lost two decades ago when a tsunami devastated coastal areas around the Indian Ocean, in one of the worst natural disasters in human history.
Citing Reuters, on December 26, 2004, a 9.1-magnitude earthquake on the western tip of Indonesia caused a series of huge waves up to 30 meters high, hitting the coastlines of 14 countries from Indonesia to Somalia.
Beachside memorials and religious ceremonies were scheduled in Asian countries like Sri Lanka, Indonesia, India, and Thailand, as some of the worst-hit countries.
A siren rang out for three minutes at the Baiturrahman Grand Mosque in Indonesia’s Aceh Province, where more than 100,000 were killed, followed by a communal prayer to kick off a series of memorials scheduled around the region.
Indonesian mourners will attend a mass grace ceremony and a communal evening prayer in the provincial capital, Banda Aceh.
Victims of the tsunami include many foreign tourists celebrating Christmas on the region’s sun-kissed beaches, bringing the tragedy into homes around the globe. The seabed being ripped open pushed waves at double the speed of a bullet train, crossing the Indian Ocean within hours.
A total of 226,408 people died as a result of the tsunami, according to EM-DAT, a recognized global disaster database.
There was no warning of the impending tsunami, 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.
Memorials in Indonesia
Indonesia suffered the highest death toll, with more than 160,000 people killed along its western coast. In Sri Lanka, over 35,000 people perished, while more than 5,000 were killed in Thailand.
"I hope we will never experience that ever again," said Nilawati, a 60-year-old Indonesian housewife who lost her son and mother in the tragedy and was attending Thursday's ceremonies, as quoted from Channel News Asia.
"I learned the devastation of losing a child, a grief I can't explain with words. It feels like it just happened yesterday. Whenever I am reminded of it, it feels like all the blood rushes out of my body."
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, survivors and relatives were to gather to remember around 1,000 victims who died when waves derailed a passenger train.
The mourners will board the restored Ocean Queen Express and head to Peraliya—the exact spot where it was ripped from the tracks, around 90 kilometers south of Colombo.
A brief religious ceremony will be held with relatives of the dead there, while Buddhist, Hindu, Christian, and Muslim ceremonies are also organized to commemorate victims across the South Asian island nation.
Unofficial vigils were expected to accompany a government memorial ceremony in Thailand, where more than half of those killed were foreign tourists.
A tsunami exhibition, a documentary screening, and introductions by government and UN bodies on disaster preparedness and resilience measures will be hosted by a hotel in Phang Nga Province.
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.
CHANNEL NEWS ASIA | REUTERS
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