(MENAFN- The Peninsula) Tearful mourners lit candles yesterday to remember the 220,000 people who died a decade ago when tsunami waves devastated coastal areas along the Indian Ocean, in one of the worst natural disasters in human history.
On December 26, 2004 a 9.3-magnitude earthquake off Indonesia's western tip generated massive waves that pummelled the coastline of 14 countries as far apart as Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka and Somalia.
Among the victims were thousands of foreign tourists enjoying Christmas on the region's sun-kissed beaches, carrying the tragedy into homes around the globe.
In southern Thailand, where half of the 5,400 dead were holidaymakers, people recounted stories of horror and miraculous survival as the churning waters, laden with the debris of eviscerated bungalows, cars and boats, swept in without warning, obliterating resorts and villages.
A minute's silence in the resort of Khao Lak, much of which was washed away, was broken by a lone trumpeter, as mourners lit white candles, some sobbing.
Among international commemorations, in Sweden, which lost 543 citizens, the royal family and relatives of the victims attended a memorial service in Uppsala Cathedral in the afternoon.
There was no warning of the tsunami, giving little time for evacuation, despite the hours-long gaps between the waves striking different continents.
The world poured money and expertise into the relief and reconstruction, with more than $13.5bn collected in the months after the disaster. Almost $7bn in aid went into rebuilding more than 140,000 houses across Indonesia's Aceh province, where most of the nation's 170,000 victims were claimed.
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.
Mosques held prayers across the province, while people visited mass graves - the resting place of many of Indonesia's tsunami dead.
But a Red Cross display of hundreds of salvaged ID documents and bank cards served as grim reminder that many victims vanished.
In Sri Lanka, where 31,000 people perished, survivors and relatives gathered to remember around 1,000 victims who died when waves derailed a passenger train.
The mourners boarded the restored Ocean Queen Express and headed to Peraliya where it was ripped from the tracks, around 90km south of Colombo.
The tsunami first hit Sri Lanka's southeastern coast, travelling across the island at about 500km an hour and killing 31,000 people.
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