THAILAND – Communities across Asia commemorated the 230,000 victims of the Indian Ocean tsunami on Thursday, the 15th anniversary of one of the world’s most deadly disasters.
On the morning after Christmas Day in 2004, a 9.1-magnitude quake off northern Sumatra island triggered a tsunami with waves as high as 17.4 meters (57 feet) that swept over vulnerable coastal areas of Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, Thailand, and nine other countries.
Memorials were scheduled in the Indonesian province of Aceh, where entire villages were flattened and over 125,000 people perished in the giant waves. Since then, the area has been largely rebuilt, with around 25,600 residential, commercial, government, and school buildings constructed inside a high-risk zone.
In Thailand, over 5,300 people were killed, including tourists visiting resort islands in the Andaman Sea while more than 35,000 people died in Sri Lanka.(Reuters)
