World marks one-year tsunami anniversary
(AP)
Updated: 2005-12-27 09:02

Survivors wept and prayed beside mass graves and at beachside memorials Monday, marking one year since earthquake-churned walls of water crashed ashore in a dozen nations, sweeping away hundreds of thousands of lives and uniting the world in grief and horror.

Mourners filled mosques in Indonesia's shattered Aceh province, the region hit hardest. Candlelight vigils in chilly Sweden remembered citizens lost during sunny holidays. An achingly personal tribute — a bouquet of white roses — stuck in the sand in Thailand.

Thai woman Pimchai Chudum holds a rose in memory of her brother during a tsunami commemoration ceremony in Khao Lak, located in Thailand's Phang Nga province, nearly 110 km (68 miles) north of the resort island of Phuket, December 26, 2005.[Reuters]

In a taped message, President Bush recalled "the acts of courage and kindness that made us proud" in the sorrowful days after the disaster. Former US President Clinton, the U.N. special envoy for tsunami recovery, promised not to let the world forget its pledges of aid.

Survivors relived the terrible awe they felt when the sea rose as high as 33 feet and surged inland for miles with seemingly unstoppable force, carrying along trees, houses, train cars — and thousands people — in a churning rush.

An Indonesian woman sits by a mass grave memorial Monday Dec. 26, 2005 in Ule Lheu, just outside Banda Aceh, Indonesia.[AP]

"I was not afraid at the time," said Muhammad Yani, 35, who scrambled to the second floor of an Aceh mosque and watched a muddy torrent roiling with people and debris. "I was more aware than ever that my soul belonged to Allah."

Like most survivors, Yani's family was devastated. Both his parents and a younger brother were killed.

"It was under the same blue sky, exactly one year ago, that Mother Earth unleashed her most destructive power upon us," Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono told a crowd at a ceremony in Banda Aceh, provincial capital of Aceh province, which had 156,000 dead and missing.

He sounded a tsunami warning siren — part of a system that did not exist last year — at 8:16 a.m., the moment the first wave hit, to herald a minute's silence.

An Indian woman mourns the death of a relative who was killed after an Indian Ocean tsunami hit Cuddalore, Tamil Nadu in this December 28, 2004 file photo. Countries around the Indian Ocean hold ceremonies on December 26, 2005 to remember the many thousands who died in last year's tsunami, one of the deadliest disasters in modern history. A year on, a huge reconstruction operation has brought hope but the pain of losing loved ones is still raw, some survivors say. [Reuters/file]

On Dec. 26, 2004, the region's most powerful earthquake in 40 years tore open the sea bed off the Sumatran coast, displacing billions of tons of water and sending waves roaring across the Indian Ocean at jetliner speeds as far away as East Africa.

The impact was staggering. Water swept a passenger train from its tracks in Sri Lanka, killing nearly 2,000 people in a single blow. Entire villages in Indonesia and India disappeared. Lobbies of five-star hotels in Thailand were filled with corpses.

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