Marked with tears:
Indonesian women cry as they pray at a mass grave to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the tsunami that killed some 230,000 people.
PERELIYA, Sri Lanka — A packed train in Sri Lanka that was swept off its tracks by waves as big as elephants. A boat patrolling off Thailand’s shore hurled more than a mile inland. Streets in Indonesia turned into roaring rivers that carried people to their deaths.
Vivid memories such as these were recalled Friday at ceremonies marking the 10th anniversary of the Indian Ocean tsunami that left nearly a quarter-million people dead in one of modern history’s worst natural disasters.
The Dec. 26, 2004, tsunami was triggered by a magnitude-9.1 earthquake — the region’s most powerful in 40 years — that tore open the seabed off Indonesia’s 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.
Weeping survivors and others took part in beachside memorials and religious services across Asia, while some European countries also marked the anniversary, remembering the thousands of Christmastime tourists who died in the disaster.
Pain and hope alike were harvested from the tragedy.
“There is no need for anyone to remind us — the sorrow will be there until I stop breathing,” said Kapila Migelratne, a 50-year-old businessman who lost his 14-year-old son and his brother when the train they were riding was derailed along Sri Lanka’s shoreline. More than 35,000 people in Sri Lanka died in the tsunami, including as many as 2,000 in what is regarded as the world’s worst train accident.
Those at a memorial service in southern Thai- land included European tsunami survivors, who were serenaded by a small orchestra and took part in a minute of silence and a candlelight ceremony. About half of Thailand’s 8,212 dead were foreign tourists, mostly Europeans escaping the winter cold.
The ceremony was held in the resort area of Khao Lak, next to a police boat that was out at sea when the tsunami struck and was carried 1.2 miles inland by the waves. The boat has become a permanent memorial to the power of the tsunami.
Indonesia’s Aceh province, which was closest to the quake’s epicenter, was hit first and hardest. Initially, the quake toppled homes and buildings and sent communities rushing into the streets in panic.
More than 170,000 people died in Indonesia alone, about three-quarters of the overall death toll.
Indonesian Vice President Jusuf Kalla led a prayer ceremony in Banda Aceh, the capital of Aceh province.
In Sri Lanka, survivors and other mourners took a memorial journey to honor those lost in the train accident.
The Queen of the Sea was chugging down Sri Lanka’s palm-fringed southwestern coast, headed from Colombo, the capital, to the town of Matara, about 90 mile away, when the tsunami struck. Waves described by survivors as being as big as elephants enveloped the train, lifting its cars off the track into a thick marsh in Pereliya village.
Only a few dozen passengers are believed to have survived.