Six months after the devastating Dec. 26 earthquake and tsunami that killed 178,000 people in 11 countries and left another 50,000 missing and presumed dead, some Asian nations yesterday held ceremonies to mourn those lost, while the survivors struggled to pick up the pieces.
In Sri Lanka, where a deal with Tamil Tigers to distribute tsunami aid in rebel-held areas has only been signed this week, the scale of the tragedy continues to haunt survivors, many of whom have yet to rebuild their homes and lives.
Thailand's tourist beaches that once saw throngs of foreigners, were eerily quiet yesterday, with luggage still buried in the sand by the tsunami and posters for missing victims hanging on palm trees as grim reminders of what happened.
In hardest-hit Indonesia, where Aceh province bore the brunt of the earthquake and deadly waves -- killing at least 131,029 with another 37,066 missing and presumed dead -- people had gathered a day earlier on Saturday in the shadow of a tsunami-battered mosque to remember their dead.
In Sri Lanka's rebel-controlled Vakarai hamlet, about 60km northeast from the eastern Batticaloa town, volunteers collected anything and everything from the rubble created by the tsunami for an exhibition marking the tsunami anniversary.
School bags, copy books, shoes, tea cups, television parts are all brought to the area's government school for an exhibition which the organizers said would help survivors to bring out their suppressed feelings and grieve in the open.
Shanthi Sivanesan, Gender and Protection Project Officer of British-based Oxfam, said the exhibition is also aimed at instilling determination among the survivors to earn back their belongings lost to the tsunami.
"We have two motives here. The chief among them is to bring out the psychological pressure out of the survivors who are still suffering inside. We will have psycho-social workers at this center to counsel them," Sivanesan said.
"This pair of shoes, my daughter liked most" read an inscription written near a shoe.
"We can be what we were before," read another.
In some areas, an uncertain future and day-to-day problems seemed to take priority over any commemoration.
About 268 persons from 73 families living in an abandoned rice store complex near Battacaloa wonder where they will go when the land they have squatted on is taken over by the government to build a medical school.
"The university told us today that we will have to vacate the building soon and if that happens we will have to go to the streets," said Kandiah Thangavel, 59, a displaced fisherman.
In Indonesia's Aceh, Saturday's ceremony marking six months since the Dec. 26 disaster was also a time to remember the dead, with prayers from the Koran and recollections of a young tsunami survivor, Nada Lutfiah, who lost her parents in the calamity.
The fourth-grader had received a letter from a third-grader in Michigan expressing hope that her family had survived. But she had to write back with the awful truth.
"Unfortunately, my family -- father, mother, brother and sister -- are gone," Lutfiah said, reading from her letter. "Now, I'm alone."
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