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

At least 216,000 people were left dead or missing and nearly 2 million lost their homes in a disaster that still rends hearts.

On Monday, about the time the waves hit a year ago, a man sat alone on Patong beach in Thailand weeping quietly as the sea gently lapped before him, belying its earlier fury. A white rose bouquet jutted from the sand nearby. He refused to talk to a reporter.

Nearby, Ulrika Landgren, 37, had come from Malmoe, Sweden, to see where nine of her friends died. "Somehow it's good to see this place," she said, tears leaking from behind her sunglasses.

Indonesia tested its tsunami warning system for the first time Monday. Alarms sounded in the Sumatran town of Padang, 620 miles south of Banda Aceh, sending residents fleeing for higher ground in a simulation.

"We knew it was just a drill," said Candra Yohanes, 55, who was among those who ran. "Still, when I heard the siren, my heart was pounding so hard."

Girls orphaned by the tsunami cry behind a damaged boat displayed at a memorial park in Nagapattinam, about 325 km (202 miles) from the southern Indian city of Chennai December 26, 2005.[Reuters]

Dozens of powerful aftershocks have rattled the region since last year's magnitude-9 quake, keeping people anxious about the possibility of another tsunami.

Somber ceremonies were held around the world.

In Sri Lanka, President Mahinda Rajapakse met with survivors near the site of the deadly train accident. Butchers hung up their knives to show respect for life, and Buddhist monks chanted prayers through the night.

Thousands of Indians attended an interfaith service at an 18th century church, then marched to a mass burial ground.

Sweden, Germany, Finland and other European countries held memorials to mourn their dead. The tsunami killed more than 2,400 foreigners, many of them European tourists, in Thailand.

Somalis gathered in mosques along the East African nation's coast to commemorate the 289 people who disappeared in the waves and to pray for the tens of thousands still homeless.

"It was so brutal, so quick, and so extensive that we are still struggling to fully comprehend it," U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in a videotaped message played in Banda Aceh.

The tsunami generated one of the most generous outpourings of foreign aid ever known �� some $13 billion in pledges. But frustration is growing among the 1.4 million people still living in tents, plywood barracks or with family and friends.

The family members of French tsunami victims look at a picture at Ban Mai Khao cemetery in Phuket province, about 862 km south of Bangkok, December 25, 2005.[Reuters]

"You want to talk about changes, we've seen nothing," said Baihqi, a 24-year-old Acehnese survivor, waving a hand dismissively at the jumble of scrap iron and plastic sheeting that is all that remains of his neighborhood. "Many promises of aid, but that's all we get �� promises."

The anniversary "just means we've existed for one year," he said.

For most, though, it was a day to think about the hellish events of a year ago, about death, about survival.

One-year-old tsunami survivor Abilass Jeyarajah, also known as "Baby 81", plays with his father Murugupillai Jeyarajah in Cheddipalaiyam village in Batticaloa, eastern Sri Lanka, in this October 20, 2005 file photo. Nearly 10 months after he was found among debris to become a beacon of hope and tsunami-devastated Sri Lanka's best-known survivor, "Baby 81" celebrated his first birthday on Wednesday with a trip to a Hindu temple. [Reuters]

On Thailand's Patong Beach, Raymond and Sharon Kelly recalled how she escaped because her husband boosted her onto a wall. He was swept away and washed inside a shop, but managed to open a skylight and get on the roof.

"I never thought I would come back. Every day I would cry," she said.

Despite their fears, the couple from Hull, England, came back to remember and to pay respects to those who were lost.

As they talked, a man tapped Sharon on the shoulder and said, "Remember me?"

It was Adolf Ruschitschka, 69, from Ruesselsheim, Germany. The two had been trapped together on a rooftop ringed by the savage, swirling waters.

Shaking with emotion, Sharon embraced him, tears pouring down her face.