Tsunami anniversary: Tears flow on Thailand's beaches

German mourners console each other before throwing flowers into the sea at the end of a special memorial service for Germans who died in last year's disaster on Khao Lak beach during the first anniversary of the tsunami in Thailand's southern Phang Nga Province yesterday. PHOTO: AFP

One one, two by two, they moved to the edge of the beach, sat down and stared silently at the sea which killed their loved ones.

Tears down cheeks as memories of those killed by the tsunami on the once paradise Thai island of Phi Phi overflowed from eyes fixed on the azure waters of the bay from where the giant waves came.

Memories, said relatives on the backpacker island where 700 people died a year ago yesterday, which will never go away.

"There's never going to be closure," said Trisha Broadbridge, whose Australian Rules footballer husband Troy was killed, as gentle waves slapped at fishing boats riding at anchor off the backdrop to cult movie The Beach.

"But at least now you've got through all those first dates, those first anniversaries, so hopefully it should get easier," she said.

On Phi Phi, on nearby Phuket island and Khao Lak beach to the north, people from all over the world joined Thais in remembering the 5,395 people known to have been killed in Thailand by the tsunami, which left nearly 3,000 people missing.

"I just want to cry. I find it hard to believe the whole thing," Australian Joy Vogel said at Khao Lak, clutching a wedding photograph of her daughter, who was three months pregnant when the tsunami took her and nearly 2,000 other foreigners.

"But I feel all the tsunami people who died are with us. The essence of my daughter lives on," she said by a police patrol boat swept 2km inland, which has become a memorial.

Like other relatives of the tsunami dead, Vogel is involved in an aid program to help Thais who suffered.

"I want to make my daughter's life count for something," she said.

Mourners laid flowers -- white, the symbol of purity.

On Phi Phi, it was at the foot of a huge banyan tree and at a simple shrine where people laid flowers, along with paper doves, a symbol of peace, something mourners hoped for but found hard to imagine.

"We just wanted to come, to come to see them," said 49-year-old Jaysar Gul, who came from Istanbul with her husband Ali to mourn their daughter Seda and her British fiance Justin.

"We miss them so much. We just want to be together," she said tears, streaming down her cheeks.

Seda's body has never been found.

Thai in memorial speeches at resorts on Thailand's usually idyllic Andaman Sea coast, promised the dead would not be forgotten.

"I wish to express my deep sympathy to those who lost their loved ones," Tourism Minister Pracha Maleenont said in Thai and English before laying a Buddhist flower garland on a memorial to the tsunami victims.

"We are not alone. There are still many others in the world who are willing to lend their help and support," he said on Phuket's Patong beach.

But some Thais were upset by the government's memorials.

"The government is organizing a jolly celebration party, not a memorial service, not a peaceful merit-making. The government does not think of the hearts and minds of the people who lost their beloved ones," said Nantaya Saphanthong, a representative of the all-but-obliterated Ban Nam Khem village.

Some were disturbed by a crowd of photographers preventing them laying down flowers.

One woman yelled at them to "just go away, please."

"We don't care about the pictures in the paper," she shouted angrily.