Indonesia commemorates 2004 deadly tsunami

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(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-12-26 17:21

JAKARTA -- Indonesia commemorated on Friday a tsunami in Aceh province on December 24, 2004, which devastated the coastal areas of Indian Ocean and killed over 230,000 people, with 170,000 of them in Aceh province.

The commemoration took place in Meulaboh town at the west coast of the province in the northern tip of Sumatra island, which was hit the hardest during the tsunami triggered by a strong quake in December 2004, head of the provincial development agency Rahman Lubis said.

National flags were raised up by a half for three days across the province and many sailors stopped sailing on as they commemorate the sad day, he said.

Television footage shows Acehnese prayed in mosques throughout the dominantly-Islamic province for the soul of the death and begged for a better future life. Ceremonies were carried out at massive graves in the capital of Banda Aceh and Aceh Besar town, Lubis said.

"This day has been made as a special day for them (sailors and Acehnese). So they stop working today," he told Xinhua by phone from the province.

"With this commemoration of the four-year of tsunami, we expect more improvement in our province," said Lubis.

Under a four-year of 7-billion US dollar reconstruction and rehabilitation scheme, Aceh has witnessed improvement as many buildings of schools, roads, government offices, residence houses and other infrastructure, have been built.

But many of them are still unfinished yet, and need more work for completion, chairman of the reconstruction and rehabilitation agency Kuntoro Magkusubroto has said.

In North Sulawesi at eastern part of the country, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono checks the preparation of a tsunami drill which will be carried out on Saturday to prevent the occurrence of the December 2004's catastrophe that smashed Indian Ocean, from Sri Lanka and India to Thailand, the Maldives and Indonesia.