Mourners mark tsunami anniversary
Ceremonies have been taking place to mark the first anniversary of the devastating Indian Ocean tsunami.
More than 200,000 people were killed when an earthquake beneath the ocean sent giant waves crashing ashore.
Places as far apart as Sri Lanka, Thailand and Somalia were affected by the disaster.
Worst affected was the Indonesian province of Aceh, closest to the quake epicentre, where more than two-thirds of the deaths occurred.
A minute's silence was held in the provincial capital Banda Aceh to mark the exact moment the first waves came ashore, and a siren then sounded to inaugurate Indonesia's new tsunami warning system.
A massive reconstruction effort is under way in Aceh, but it will take years to rebuild the shattered province.
I think you need to come back
Pigge Werkelin
Swedish survivor returning to Thailand
Tens of thousands of survivors are still living in tents and it is estimated that at least 80,000 new houses need to be built.
Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono paid tribute to those who had tried to rebuild their lives over the past year.
"You have reminded us that life is worth struggling for," he said.
The BBC's Rachel Harvey, in Banda Aceh, says that despite the dignitaries and flags of the formal ceremonies, the day is about the ordinary people of Aceh - the 130,000 people who died, the 37,000 still officially listed as missing and the survivors who were behind to grieve.
Train disaster
Sri Lanka has been paying tribute to more than 30,000 people who were killed on the island.
Around the island, small private ceremonies were held to mark the moment the waves struck.
The government held the official ceremony at Peraliya on the southern coast, where more than 1,000 people died when a train was swamped by the incoming water.
Temple bells signalled the beginning of a two-minute silence at a ceremony led by President Mahinda Rajapakse and attended by an array of local and international dignitaries.
The BBC's Dumetha Luthra, in Peraliya, says the site of the train derailment has come to symbolise Sri Lanka's national devastation.
But she adds that a year on, the line has been reconstructed, the train is once again running and that all along the coast, while still remembering the dead, people are continuing their lives.
Tourist toll
Thailand has been remembering more than 5000 people who lost their lives there in the tsunami, two-fifths of them foreign tourists.
Worst hit was the stretch of coastline at Khao Lak in southern Thailand, where local Thais and the foreigners who were caught up in the disaster bowed their heads in silent contemplation before laying flowers in memory of those who died.
"I think you need to come back," Swedish survivor Pigge Werkelin, who lost his two young sons and his wife in the disaster, told Reuters news agency.
"You need to go to the beach, you have to see children on the beach, you have to see everything... I must do it and then afterward I can put it behind me."
Aid model
Around 1.5m people were left homeless in the region after the wall of water stripped away trees, houses and whole communities, and reconstruction could take between five years and a decade.
But just as the scale of the devastation was shocking, the BBC's Catherine Davis notes, so the international response was unprecedented.
The United Nations says it was the most generous and most immediately funded emergency relief effort. About $12bn is estimated to have been raised and the massive aid effort has also acted as a test case for how the international community responds to disasters.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4559404.stm
Published: 2005/12/26 10:02:59 GMT
© BBC MMV
May Christ support the victims and their families all the day long,
till the shadows lengthen and the evening comes,
and the busy world is hushed and the fever of life is over
and their work is done.
Then in his mercy may he give them a safe lodging,
and holy rest and peace at the last.
Amen.
(From Catholic on line; ammended and originally attributed to John Cardinal Newman)
