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Quiet remembrances for tsunami victims

Final preparations are made for official commemoration ceremonies on Monday

BANDA ACEH (Indonesia): Grieving relatives gathered on beaches and at mass graves on Sunday to remember the 216,000 persons killed or washed away by the tsunami that crashed into coastlines from Asia to Africa one year ago.

As final preparations were made for official commemoration ceremonies on Monday marking one year to the day since the disaster, mourners held mostly small, quiet prayer gatherings of their own on the anniversary's eve.

Western tourists who survived the tsunami were among those who returned to rebuilt resorts in Thailand to remember family and friends who did not. In India, children dressed in white marched down a street where thousands were washed away.

Mass grave

In Indonesia's worst-hit Aceh province, some survivors went to a mass grave where the unidentified bodies of almost 47,000 victims are buried — many of them to mourn loved ones who simply vanished in the waves.

``After I come here I somehow feel satisfied,'' said Dasniati, who travelled 15 hours to lay petals on the grave at Lamboro, outside the devastated provincial capital of Banda Aceh.

She believes the body of her 10-year-old daughter, Yaul, was among the thousands dumped into pits at Lamboro in the days immediately after the December 26 tragedy, when officials were desperate to clear the streets of thousands of corpses.

``I pray that Allah accepts her at his side,'' she said.

Countries left reeling by the 33-ft. high waves sent crashing ashore in 12 countries by a magnitude-9 undersea earthquake off Indonesia's coast were preparing to mark the anniversary with official ceremonies and a minute's silence on Monday.

Monuments were being erected, beaches scoured and security tightened — making for a sombre Christmas in some places.

In a solemn private ceremony, Sigi Gsteu, of Feldkirch, Austria, wiped away tears as he remembered three close friends who died when the torrents flooded their Thai resort bungalow last year.

``When a person is missing and you don't have [a body], you cannot say goodbye,'' he said, placing two simple wooden plaques engraved with his friends' names beneath a pine tree where the resort once stood. This was his ``chance to say goodbye.''

In Sri Lanka, where the tsunami killed more than 31,000, Buddhist monks planned to sing hymns in an all-night vigil on Sunday to bless those who died and help them become reincarnated. — AP

Xinhua reports:

An earthquake measuring 4.6 on the Richter scale jolted Nias Island, North Sumatra, at 09:49 a.m. local time on Sunday, nearly two hours before Mr. Yudhoyono arrived in the island to attend Christmas celebration.

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