Asia to mourn tsunami dead with ceremonies on 20th anniversary

BANDA ACEH, INDONESIA — Emotional ceremonies were expected across Asia on Thursday to remember the 220,000 people who died two decades ago when a tsunami devastated coastal areas around the Indian Ocean in one of the worst natural disasters in human history.

On Dec. 26, 2004, a 9.1-magnitude earthquake off Indonesia's western tip generated a series of massive waves that pummeled the coastline of 14 countries from Indonesia to Somalia.

Beachside memorials and religious ceremonies will be held across Asia in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India and Thailand, which were the worst hit countries.

"I hope we will never experience that ever again," said Nilawati, a 60-year-old Indonesian housewife who lost her son and mother in the tragedy.

"I learned the devastation of losing a child, a grief I can't explain with words,” she said. “It feels like it just happened yesterday. Whenever I am reminded of it, it feels like all the blood rushes out of my body."

Victims of waves as high as 30 meters included many foreign tourists celebrating Christmas on the region's sun-kissed beaches, bringing the tragedy into homes around the globe.

The seabed being ripped open pushed waves at double the speed of a bullet train, crossing the Indian Ocean within hours without warning.

A total of 226,408 people died because of the tsunami, according to EM-DAT, a recognized global disaster database.

There was no warning of the impending tsunami, giving little time for evacuation, despite the hourslong gaps between the waves striking different continents. But today a sophisticated network of monitoring stations has cut down warning times.

Indonesia suffered the highest death toll, with more than 160,000 people killed along its western coast.

In its westernmost province, Aceh, mourners were to hold a moment of silence before visits to a mass grave and a communal prayer at the grand mosque in the provincial capital, Banda Aceh.

The disaster also ended a decadeslong separatist conflict in Aceh, with a peace deal between rebels and Jakarta struck less than a year later.

In Sri Lanka, where more than 35,000 people perished, survivors and relatives were to gather to remember around 1,000 victims who died when waves derailed a passenger train.

The mourners will board the restored Ocean Queen Express and head to Peraliya — the exact spot where it was ripped from the tracks, around 90 kilometers south of Colombo.

A brief religious ceremony will be held with relatives of the dead there while Buddhist, Hindu, Christian and Muslim ceremonies are also organized to commemorate victims across the South Asian island nation.

In Thailand, where half of the more than 5,000 dead were foreign tourists, unofficial vigils were expected to accompany a government memorial ceremony.

At a hotel in Phang Nga province, there will be a tsunami exhibition, a documentary screening and introductions by government and U.N. bodies on disaster preparedness and resilience measures.

Nearly 300 people were killed as far away as Somalia, as well as more than 100 in the Maldives and dozens in Malaysia and Myanmar.

"My children, wife, father, mother, all of my siblings were swept away," said Indonesian survivor and fisherman Baharuddin Zainun, 70.

"The same tragedy was felt by others as well. We feel the same feelings."