Phuket prepares to remember Asian Tsunami 9th anniversary

Phuket prepares to remember Asian Tsunami 9th anniversary
Khemin Wicheetthagoon


The ceremony in Patong usually attracts large crowds.

PHUKET: -- Commemorations to mark the ninth anniversary of the 2004 Asian Tsunami, in which some 800 people in Phuket died, will take place on December 26 in a variety of places as people remember the dead, with the main remembrances in Mai Khao and Patong.

In Mai Khao, diplomats, local officials and service organisations will join family members at the Tsunami Wall, erected on a site where many of the victims were stored while Thailand undertook the laborious work of identifying the dead. Around 800 people died in Phuket and many more who disappeared have never been found.

The wall, painted white, features the names and flags of the 45 countries whose nationals died in the tsunami, which killed around 230,000 people in the region, making it the fifth most deadly disaster in the past 100 century.

Commemorations will begin at 8:30 am with a Buddhist ceremony, followed at 10 am by a Muslim service and, after that, a Christian one.

The other ceremony will be held in the evening on Patong Beach, where altars for a variety of religions have been set up every year next to the beach in Loma Park for the offering of prayers, starting at around 5 pm.

In what has become a touching and gentle annual tradition, people will dig small pits in the sand of the beach, placing candles in them, while kom loy, or paper hot air balloons, will be released into the sky as the sun goes down.

Source: http://www.thephuketnews.com/phuket-prepares-to-remember-asian-tsunami-9th-anniversary-43544.php


-- Phuket News 2013-12-20