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Survivors return to beaches
Survivors on Saturday launched a boat laden with flowers, candles and incense in the first ceremony to mark one year since the Indian Ocean tsunami swept away at least 216,000 lives in one of the world's worst natural disasters in memory.
- AP
- Published: 00:00 December 25, 2005
Phuket, Thailand: Survivors on Saturday launched a boat laden with flowers, candles and incense in the first ceremony to mark one year since the Indian Ocean tsunami swept away at least 216,000 lives in one of the world's worst natural disasters in memory.
The ceremony in Thailand was the first of hundreds due to be held to mark the disaster's grim anniversary in the dozen countries hit by the earthquake-spawned waves last December 26.
The mourning comes as survivors and officials take stock of the massive relief operation and peace processes in Sri Lanka and Indonesia's Aceh province, the two places hardest hit by the tsunami.
At Bang Niang beach in Thailand's Phang Nga province, mourners including Western tourists who were caught in the disaster placed offerings into a brightly coloured, bird-shaped boat that was floated into the Andaman Sea as members of the Moken, or sea gypsy, tribe chanted and banged drums.
The Moken believe the ceremony helps ward off evil spirits.
Peter Pruchniewitz, 68, who was swept from his hotel room and lost a friend to the waves a year ago, returned from Zurich, Switzerland, to attend anniversary ceremonies. Asked why, he said simply, "to remember."
A private memorial service for British citizens and two candlelight ceremonies were planned for later yesterday on the nearby island of Phuket.
In hardest-hit Indonesia, workers yesterday scaled the minarets of the imposing 16th century mosque in Banda Aceh, slapping on a fresh coat of whitewash in preparation for special services tomorrow.
Thousands of survivors have been rehoused in Aceh, but agencies say they are only about 20 per cent of the total number needing new homes and the landscape is still one of devastation in many places.
But the tsunami did bring one positive side effect in Aceh it resulted in a ceasefire between the government and guerrillas to end a decades-old separatist conflict.
No such progress was made in Sri Lanka, where an upsurge in violence blamed on rebels have dashed hopes that the tsunami would bring a final end to the civil conflict.
Exactly one year ago on Monday, the most powerful earthquake in four decades magnitude 9 ripped apart the ocean floor off Sumatra, displacing millions of tons of water and sending giant waves crashing into Indian Ocean coastlines from Malaysia to east Africa.
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