Mourners from across the world wept, prayed and observed moments of silence along ravaged Indian Ocean coastlines on Monday to remember those killed by one of nature''s deadliest disasters.
A year after the Indian Ocean tsunami, a huge recovery operation has brought hope to hundreds of thousands of survivors. But the sorrow, pain and trauma remain strong -- along with fears that monster waves could come again.
"We think about the lost lives, lost property and lost jobs," said Kanagalingan Janenthra, 19, in Sri Lanka''s eastern town of Batticaloa. "We are in fear. Some of us think it might come again."
About 230,000 people were killed or disappeared in 13 Indian Ocean countries, nearly three quarters of them in Indonesia''s Aceh province on the northern tip of Sumatra, according to tallies made by individual countries.
Survivors, friends and relatives joined national leaders and foreign dignitaries for memorials in the worst affected countries of Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India and Thailand.
In Aceh, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono set off a siren at 8:16 a.m. to begin a minute of silence.
"It was under the same blue sky exactly a year ago that Mother Earth unleashed the most destructive power among us," Yudhoyono said in a flattened suburb of the capital Banda Aceh.
A 9.15 magnitude earthquake, which lasted eight minutes, set off waves 10 metres (33 feet) high that smashed into shorelines as far away as East Africa, sweeping holidaymakers off beaches and erasing entire towns and villages.
A year later, four out of five of the two million people displaced are still living in tents, temporary shelters or piled in with family and friends across the region.
After a much criticised slow start to reconstruction, officials and aid groups say a big chunk of the $13.6 billion in pledged donations -- the most generously funded humanitarian effort in history -- will be deployed for projects next year.
The toll has been difficult to pin down because countries are still trying to update figures. Some people still hope their children will be found.
Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra laid a foundation stone for a memorial at Khao Lak, a beach resort in southern Thailand where many foreigners died.
Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse oversaw two minutes'' silence and placed a floral wreath at the foot of a cresting wave-shaped memorial for the 35,000 who died in the tsunami.
On the east coast, hardest hit by the disaster, friends and relatives clustered around candles while hundreds of people gathered in Colombo''s central Independence Square for their own candle-lit vigil.
In India''s Nagapattinam district, where the tsunami took half of India''s 12,405 known dead, fishermen stayed away from the sea to pray for the departed.
In the Andaman and Nicobar islands, home to some of the world''s most primitive tribes, groups of people walked from village to village observing silence in memory of those killed and lit candles in their hamlets.
Indonesia tested a tsunami warning system for the first time on Monday, sounding warning sirens on a beach in the West Sumatra town of Padang. Officials urged residents to run along organised evacuation routes.
Experts say many lives could have been saved if a tsunami early warning system, similar to that in the Pacific, had been in place.
A year after the Indian Ocean tsunami, a huge recovery operation has brought hope to hundreds of thousands of survivors. But the sorrow, pain and trauma remain strong -- along with fears that monster waves could come again.
"We think about the lost lives, lost property and lost jobs," said Kanagalingan Janenthra, 19, in Sri Lanka''s eastern town of Batticaloa. "We are in fear. Some of us think it might come again."
About 230,000 people were killed or disappeared in 13 Indian Ocean countries, nearly three quarters of them in Indonesia''s Aceh province on the northern tip of Sumatra, according to tallies made by individual countries.
Survivors, friends and relatives joined national leaders and foreign dignitaries for memorials in the worst affected countries of Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India and Thailand.
In Aceh, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono set off a siren at 8:16 a.m. to begin a minute of silence.
"It was under the same blue sky exactly a year ago that Mother Earth unleashed the most destructive power among us," Yudhoyono said in a flattened suburb of the capital Banda Aceh.
A 9.15 magnitude earthquake, which lasted eight minutes, set off waves 10 metres (33 feet) high that smashed into shorelines as far away as East Africa, sweeping holidaymakers off beaches and erasing entire towns and villages.
A year later, four out of five of the two million people displaced are still living in tents, temporary shelters or piled in with family and friends across the region.
After a much criticised slow start to reconstruction, officials and aid groups say a big chunk of the $13.6 billion in pledged donations -- the most generously funded humanitarian effort in history -- will be deployed for projects next year.
The toll has been difficult to pin down because countries are still trying to update figures. Some people still hope their children will be found.
Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra laid a foundation stone for a memorial at Khao Lak, a beach resort in southern Thailand where many foreigners died.
Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse oversaw two minutes'' silence and placed a floral wreath at the foot of a cresting wave-shaped memorial for the 35,000 who died in the tsunami.
On the east coast, hardest hit by the disaster, friends and relatives clustered around candles while hundreds of people gathered in Colombo''s central Independence Square for their own candle-lit vigil.
In India''s Nagapattinam district, where the tsunami took half of India''s 12,405 known dead, fishermen stayed away from the sea to pray for the departed.
In the Andaman and Nicobar islands, home to some of the world''s most primitive tribes, groups of people walked from village to village observing silence in memory of those killed and lit candles in their hamlets.
Indonesia tested a tsunami warning system for the first time on Monday, sounding warning sirens on a beach in the West Sumatra town of Padang. Officials urged residents to run along organised evacuation routes.
Experts say many lives could have been saved if a tsunami early warning system, similar to that in the Pacific, had been in place.
