World marks tsunami anniversary with prayers

World marks tsunami anniversary with prayers

Agencies, Car Nicobar, India/Stockholm

Families of the tsunami victims across the world marked the
anniversary of the disaster on Monday with candlelight vigils and
somber memorial ceremonies.

India offered tearful tributes to the thousands killed in last
year's tsunami with countrywide memorial services, silent marches
and beachside ceremonies.

On the palm-fringed island of Car Nicobar, shattered by the
Dec. 26 tragedy, the military unveiled a memorial while thousands
of civilian survivors, mostly Nicobarese tribespeople, left their
homes early to remember those washed away within seconds when the
giant waves struck.

Women thronged Nicobar's beaches to pray for the sea to remain
calm as priests called on villagers to gather at those churches
still standing in remembrance of the dead.

India lost more than 10,700 people confirmed killed, with
5,600 others listed as missing, as villages were wiped out along
its southern coast and in the Andaman and Nicobar island chain.

It suffered material damage estimated by the United Nations at
US$2.5 billion.

In Nagapattinam, India's worst-hit district in the southern
state of Tamil Nadu where more than 6,000 people died, each
village found its own way to remember the destruction.

The entire district observed a minute's silence at 9:17 a.m.
at local time, the moment the waves slammed into the shore.

In Thailand, Thousands of Thais and foreigners gathered on
beaches across southern Thailand to mark the anniversary of last
year's tsunami as Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra led a nation
in mourning the victims of the disaster.

"It is not often that we have the opportunity to be part of a
historic moment that will be remembered for generations to come,"
Thaksin said as he laid the foundation stone for a tsunami
memorial here.

Around 5,400 people were killed in Thailand alone -- 2,436 of
them foreign tourists from 37 countries -- and another 637 are
listed as missing.

The ceremony came at the end of a day of commemorations
throughout southern Thailand that saw Thais and foreigners come
together to remember the dead.

At Bang Nieng in the worst hit province of Phang Nga, hundreds
lined up earlier in the day to sign remembrance books in the
shadow of a police patrol boat that was washed one kilometer
inland by the killer waves and now stands as a memorial to the
catastrophe.

Many of the messages were brief, with one reading, "We miss
you every day", while another simply asked "Why?!"

Meanwhile, Sri Lanka remembered the Dec. 26 tsunami victims
with prayers, flowers and a two-minute silence as survivors,
officials and foreign diplomats gathered in a village that
suffered the country's largest loss of life.

Butchers hung up their knives to show respect for life while
Buddhist monks prepared to chant through the night on the first
anniversary of the disaster.

In the southern village of Peraliya -- where the raging waves
swept a passenger train from its tracks, killing nearly 2,000 -
ordinary Sri Lankans and international diplomats joined President
Mahinda Rajapakse to honor the country's more than 35,000 dead
and missing, the second-highest count after Indonesia.

Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim and Christian clergymen, representing
Sri Lanka's four main religions, opened the ceremonies with
prayers. A two-minute silence followed at 9:30 a.m. local time --
the time the waves hit -- and a temple bell rang nine times.
Rajapakse placed flowers on a monument.

In Sweden, one of the hardest-hit Western countries, national
broadcaster SVT dedicated all programming on its second channel
to the anniversary. The special memorial program started with
live coverage from a vigil at a Thai beach where dozens of
vacationing Swedes died a year ago.

"Even the sky cries with us today," Bishop Lennart Koskinen
said in Swedish as a light rain fell on the mourners gathered in
Khao Lak, a beach resort that was pounded by the tsunami.

Candlelight vigils were planned later in the day throughout
Sweden. The royal family and Prime Minister Goran Persson were to
attend a one-hour vigil in Stockholm, the capital.

Foreign Minister Laila Freivalds, who has been harshly
criticized for not reacting more quickly to the disaster, said
she would not attend out of respect for the victims.

More than 500 Swedes were killed in the tsunami - the biggest
trauma the safe and prosperous country has experienced since the
sinking of the passenger ferry Estonia in the Baltic Sea in 1994.
The government faced heavy criticism for failing to grasp the
scope of the disaster at an early stage and mount an effective
response.

Germany honored the 534 Germans identified as lost in the
tsunami. Fifteen still are missing.

"None of them is forgotten," Development Minister Heidemarie
Wieczorek-Zeul said late on Sunday in a statement.