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Sunday, December 27, 2009

Remembering victims of Indian Ocean tsunami

last 26Dec,

Fifth anniversary of Indian Ocean tsunami

Residents and foreigners in Phang Nga in southern Thailand release lanterns to mark the fifth anniversary of the 2004 tsunami. About 230,000 people died in a dozen nations. Indonesia suffered the highest death toll.

Phuket, Thailand - Buddhist monks in orange robes chanted on a beach in Thailand, a mother mourned her children at a mass grave in Indonesia and a man scattered flowers in now-placid waters Saturday to commemorate the 230,000 people killed five years ago when a tsunami ripped across the Indian Ocean rim.

The outpouring of aid that followed the Dec. 26, 2004, tsunami has helped rebuild homes, schools and coastal communities. But at Saturday's ceremonies, survivors spoke of the enduring wounds.

Thousands in Indonesia's Aceh province, which was hardest hit, attended prayer services at mosques and beside the mass graves where tens of thousands were buried. About 167,000 people were killed in Indonesia, more than two-thirds of them in Aceh.

Among them were the relatives of Siti Amridar, 48, who wept Saturday at a mass grave in Banda Aceh, the provincial capital. Four of her five children and her parents were washed away with their village.

The disaster's epicenter was off the coast of Aceh, the northern tip of the island of Sumatra, where a 9.2-magnitude earthquake struck underwater. It toppled homes and buildings and sent panicked communities rushing into the streets.

About 20 minutes later, a wall of water up to six stories high surged in from the sea, picking up toppled trees, crumpled cars and refrigerators along the way.

In Thailand, where more than 8,000 died, hundreds of residents and visitors returned to the southern island of Phuket.

In Sri Lanka, traffic came to a standstill as people observed two minutes of silence for the 35,000 people who died there.

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