INDIAN OCEAN: Coastal communities across Indian Ocean take part in remembrance ceremonies for those who died
Coastal communities across the Indian Ocean yesterday marked the first anniversary of last year's tsunami that left 230,000 people dead, with ceremonies of tearful remembrance and hopeful thanksgiving.
They were joined by thousands of foreigners, many of whom were survivors of the disaster, relatives of those who died and aid workers involved in what has become the world's largest ever recovery and reconstruction operation.
Commemorations began in Indonesia's Aceh province on Sumatra's northern tip. It was the closest place to the epicentre of the 9.2-magnitude quake which triggered the tsunami, the first place to be struck by the deadly waves and the region that suffered the most deaths and damage. More than 132,000 people were killed, 37,000 were reported missing and 600,000 were left homeless along a 800km stretch of coast.
Against a backdrop of just a few dozen houses rising out of the rubble of thousands of obliterated homes, Indonesia's president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, pressed an alarm at 8.16am, the time the tsunami first crashed on to the coast.
"It was under the same blue sky, exactly one year ago that mother earth unleashed her most destructive power upon us," he told a crowd of hundreds, many in tears, at an official function.
The UN secretary-general, Kofi Annan, said in a videotaped message that the tsunami "was so brutal, so quick, so extensive that we are still struggling to fully comprehend it".
In a response to criticism that the pace of reconstruction in many countries is too slow, Mr Annan said that in the recovery operations "we need to strike a balance between quick results and sustainable development".
Thousands of Acehnese gathered at the mass graves on the outskirts of the main city, Banda Aceh, where tens of thousands of unidentified people were buried while many villages along the devastated coast, where fatality rates often exceeded 90 per cent, held their own small events. They were usually a mixture of prayers for the dead followed by a thanksgiving meal for those who survived.
In Thailand six simple official ceremonies were held on or near beaches at the tourist centres of Phuket, Khao Lak and Phi Phi just after 10am, the time the tsunami stuck the country's Andaman Sea coast. Foreigners often outnumbered locals as some 2,200 of the 5,395 people who died in Thailand hailed from 37 other countries. Many of the visitors also went to where they, or their loved-ones, had been at the time of the disaster.
"Obviously it's distressing but also good in a way to see all this," said Ruth Frankline, from Western Australia, as she toured the shell of the still-unrenovated Sofitel resort in Khao Lak where her daughter, Kim Walsh, died. "Seeing where she was, seeing her room gives me a better perspective on it."
Events in Thailand concluded with thousands of people attending a multi-faith service on Bang Niang beach. The Thai prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, summed up thoughts of many when he said he had learned over the last year to wonder at "the fact that much beauty lies in the heart of mankind".
"Life must still go on as it always has on other evenings like this one. The only difference is that from this day on, we have been rejuvenated by a renewed faith in human kindness and a clearer perception of the value of human life."
Ceremonies were much more low-key in Sri Lanka, where the civil war between the government and the Tamil Tiger rebels has experienced a significant upsurge in recent months after an initial post-tsunami period of co-operation.
President Mahinda Rajapakse met survivors near the site of where the tsunami swept a train off its tracks, killing more than 1,000 people. Butchers hung up their knives to show respect for life while Buddhist monks prepared to chant through the night. He also led a brief official commemoration that few ordinary people bothered to attend.
Fishermen in India's Nagapattinam district, Tamil Nadu, where the half of India's 12,405 known dead were killed, stayed away from the sea to offer prayers. In the Andaman and Nicobar islands, people walked from village to village observing silence in memory of those killed.