Mourners mark 20 years since deadly tsunami in Asia

Survivors and relatives held commemorations on Thursday in several countries to mark two decades since a shock tsunami claimed lives from Myanmar to Somalia.

The 9.1-magnitude event, known scientifically as the Sumatra-Andaman earthquake, killed an estimated 226,408 people according to EM-DAT, a recognized global disaster database.

Waves as high as 30 meters (98 feet) battered the coastlines of 14 countries with deadly results after the shock.

The four worst-affected countries were Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, and Thailand, with more than 170,000 of the fatalities in Indonesia alone.

Indonesia's Aceh province hardest hit by tsunami

In Indonesia's Aceh Province, where the tsunami claimed the lives of some 100,000 victims, a siren from the Baiturrahman Grand Mosque was sounded to begin a series of memorials.

Thousands gathered at mass graves in the region, close to the geological epicenter off Sumatra's northwestern coast, where most of the Indonesian victims died.

Hundreds of survivors visited a mass grave in the Ulee Lheue village, where more than 14,000 unidentified victims are buried. They scattered flower petals on stones marking the graves of loved ones.

Tsunami derailed passenger train in Sri Lanka's Peraliya, killing nearly 2,000

In Sri Lanka, the day was marked with two minutes of silence at the Peraliya Tsunami Memorial Statue in the town of Galle.

Mourners laid flowers at a memorial to nearly 2,000 passengers who died when the giant waves hit their train, the Ocean Queen Express.

They boarded the restored train and headed to the exact spot where it was ripped from the tracks some 90 kilometers (56 miles) south of the capital, Colombo.

In Thailand, fishermen suffer huge toll

People in Thailand gathered and lay flowers at a ceremony in Ban Nam Khem, a fishing village in the hard-hit province of Phang Nga.

Many of the 8,000 people killed there were foreign tourists there to celebrate Christmas on the area's sunny beaches.

About 300 people took part in a ceremony that featured Muslim, Buddhist and Christian prayers.

The devastating wave claimed more than 8,000 people lives in Thailand, with many who remain missing. Some 400 bodies are still unclaimed there. 

Indians gather in Chennai to offer prayers

Hundreds in India gathered at Marina Beach in the southern city of Chennai in Tamil Nadu state.

They poured milk into the sea, offering flowers and prayers for the dead to the beat of drums in the background.

Data shows that 10,749 people were killed in India, nearly 7,000 of them in Tamil Nadu alone.

Almost 300 people died across the Indian Ocean in Somalia, while more than 100 perished in the Maldives and dozens in Malaysia and Myanmar.

rc/rm (AFP, AP, Reuters)