With offerings of flowers, religious ceremonies and train trips, the countries most affected by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami remembered this Thursday the almost 230,000 victims of the worst catastrophe of this century, which is now 20 years old.
At 7:58 Indonesian time on December 26, 2004, a powerful 9.1 magnitude earthquake shook the seabed at a depth of 30 kilometers west of the island of Sumatra. The earthquake unleashed a series of tsunamis that killed 167,000 people in Indonesia, some 35,000 in Sri Lanka, 16,000 in India and 8,200 in Thailand, in addition to causing casualties in ten other countries.
A row of white flowers has been arranged in an emotional ceremony in Ban Nam Khem, the Thai town hardest hit by the tsunami. The flowers have been placed on a wall in the park dedicated to the memory of the victims where the act was carried out with songs, prayers and many tears.
The bodies, dragged by the waves at a thousand kilometers/hour
With the same Andaman Sea in the background, dozens of foreigners also participated in this kind of holistic liturgy to commemorate that it was precisely in Thailand where the most tourists died (about 2,000) dragged by waves, which traveled up to 1,000 kilometers per hour.
One of those attending is German Emma, whose daughter died in Ban Nam Khem, where she had traveled with friends from Berlin a few days before Christmas 2004 to enjoy the festivities under the tropical sun of Thailand. This mother, who still mourns her loss, describes the ceremony as a meeting place, where sorrows come together and smiles are achieved, remembering what the lives of those who died were like.
Indonesia, the most affected country
Indonesia, the country most affected by the tsunami, remembered the victims this Thursday in a ceremony at the Baiturrahman mosque, which withstood the shaking of the waves in the middle of ground zero of the tsunami in the town of Banda Aceh. “That day, the disaster changed the lives of millions. Mothers, fathers, children lost their lives. Cities were devastated,” said the interim governor of the province of Aceh, Safrizal Zakaria Ali, before the attendees dressed in white.
At 7:58, just at the time the earthquake occurred 20 years ago, a siren sounded at the beginning of the ceremony that included prayers and speeches from survivors.
Delisa Fitri Rahmadani, who was 7 years old when the tsunami occurred and lost her leg in the catastrophe, has stated that she lost her mother and sister, whose bodies were never found, and that she has tried to offer affection and love throughout of her life to those who cared for her after the disaster. “I feel that it is my duty to repay their generosity by showing that I not only survived but that I have thrived,” he stated in the ceremony that was broadcast on social networks.
The tsunami hit Banda Aceh about 20 minutes after the quake and killed 25 percent of its inhabitants. The image of the solitary mosque in the middle of devastated land is one of the most iconic images of the disaster.
More than 35,000 people died in Sri Lanka
In Sri Lanka, where more than 35,000 people lost their lives in the tsunami, hundreds of people commemorated the disaster with a train ride between Colombo and Galle, while dozens of religious rites were held across the island.
This route runs along the southwest coast of the island and passes through the same place where exactly twenty years ago a train with more than a thousand passengers on board was destroyed by the tsunami waves.
“The train stopped at the place where it stopped twenty years ago and people came to the memorial statue to remember those who lost their lives that day. More than a thousand people who were traveling on the train that was hit by the tsunami were buried in this place,” Buddhist monk Vimala Thero, who organizes this tribute every year, explains to EFE.
India, which lost some 16,000 people in the disaster, has paid tribute to the victims with various events, including laying flowers at a memorial in the city of Chennai (southeast), on a beach that was devastated by the tsunami.
In other coastal districts of India, residents organized marches to the beaches to offer flowers on their shores and throw milk into the sea, as a sign of respect.
20 years ago, the tsunami surprised most of the victims because there was no early warning system in the region. Today, countries are better prepared with a network of coordinated centers, marine buoys and tsunami warnings.
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