Communities across Asia mark 20 years since Boxing Day tsunami killed 220,000 ...Middle East

People across Asia were holding ceremonies on Thursday to remember the more than 220,000 people who were killed by the Boxing Day tsunami, which hit 20 years ago today.

It comes as UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said his thoughts are with the “millions of people who were affected”.

In Indonesia’s Aceh province, people gathered in prayer and visited mass graves to mark two decades since the disaster, which was one of the worst in modern history.

Many wept as they laid flowers at a mass grave in Ulee Lheue village, where over 14,000 unidentified victims of the tsunami are buried.

It is one of several mass graves in Banda Aceh – the capital of Indonesia’s northernmost province – which was one of the areas worst hit by a magnitude 9.1 earthquake and the massive tsunami it triggered.

“We miss them and we still don’t know where they are. All we know is that every year we visit the mass grave in Ulee Lhue and Siron,” said Muhamad Amirudin, who lost two of his children 20 years ago and has never found their bodies.

“This life is only temporary, so we do our best to be useful to others,” Amirudin, visiting the grave with his wife, said.

Hundreds of people also gathered to pray at the Baiturrahman Mosque in downtown Banda Aceh. Sirens sounded across the city for three minutes to mark the time of the earthquake.

The powerful earthquake off the coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra on 26 December, 2004, triggered a tsunami that killed more than 220,000 people across a dozen countries, reaching as far as East Africa.

Some 1.7 million people were displaced, mostly in the four worst-affected countries: Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India and Thailand. More than 170,000 people died in Indonesia alone.

In Thailand, people gathered at a memorial ceremony in Ban Nam Khem, a small fishing village in Phang Nga province that bore the brunt of the devastating wave in the country.

'I lost my daughter in the Boxing Day Tsunami - I'll never stop searching for her'

The tsunami claimed the lives of over 8,000 people in Thailand, including many who remain missing, leaving a deep scar in the nation’s history. Nearly 400 bodies remain unclaimed.

Mourners shed tears and comforted each other as they laid flowers at the village’s tsunami memorial. Around 300 people joined a modest ceremony with Muslim, Christian and Buddhist prayers.

Urai Sirisuk said she avoids the seaside memorial park the rest of the year because the loss of her four-year-old daughter still cuts deep every time she’s reminded of it.

“I have this feeling that the sea has taken my child. I’m very angry with it. I can’t even put my foot in the water,” she said.

But, she said, “I still hear her voice in my ears, that she’s calling for me. I can’t abandon her. So I have to be here, for my child.”

In India, hundreds gathered at Marina beach in the southern city of Chennai in Tamil Nadu state. They poured milk into the sea to propitiate gods and offered flowers and prayers for the dead as drums beat in the background.

According to official data, 10,749 people were killed in India, including nearly 7,000 people in Tamil Nadu alone.

In Sri Lanka, survivors and relatives of tsunami victims gathered at the coastal village of Pereliya and laid flowers at a memorial that commemorates nearly 2,000 passengers who died when their train, the Queen of the Sea, was hit by the wave. Only a few dozen people are believed to have survived.

Overall, more than 35,000 people died in Sri Lanka in the tsunami. People across the country observed two minutes of silence on Thursday in memory of those who lost their lives.

In a post on X, Starmer said: “Today marks twenty years since the devastating Indian Ocean tsunami that took the lives of so many.

“My thoughts are with those who lost loved ones and the millions of people who were affected by the disaster, as well as all those who helped with the recovery.”

Additional reporting by agencies.

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