Tsunami 2nd Anniversary Ceremonies

[NBT TV Phuket]

A ‘Light Up Phuket’ ceremony will be held on December 26th in remembrance of the 2004 tsunami while Phang-Nga plans a religious ceremony and simple remembrance.

In remembrance of the December 26th tsunami which struck the coastal lines of the Indian Ocean including the Andaman coastal provinces, a few activities are now planned for its 2nd year anniversary. In Phuket, the Provincial Administration Organization or PPAO joins hands with the Tourism Authority of Thailand to hold the candle lighting ceremony called ‘Light Up Patong’ in tribute to the victims. On Kamala beach, the Japanese Association is scheduled to hold a remembrance ceremony on the beach where the memorial is stationed.

Meanwhile in Phang-Nga, all 5 religious ceremonies are reported to be arranged by the provincial authority. In the evening candle lighting and lanterns will be released in respect of the victims while the remembrance ceremony will also be arranged at the Bang Maruan cemetery where the unidentified victims are kept.

from Andaman News TV11 (VHF dial) + Radio Thailand FM90.5 Phuket City, both broadcast to Phang Nga, Krabi & Phuket provinces, 8.30am & later on Phuket Cable channel 1, Wednesday 13th December 2006 & www.Thaisnews.com { Our news text and mini-videos can be freely copied and posted on other websites, but please give credit to Andaman News TV11 Phuket}

[NBT TV Phuket]

Mini-video: Phuket plans its TSUNAMI REMEMBRANCE event in a simple and respectful style emphasized on public participation.

To see or download mini-video, go to http://www.thaisnews.com/news_detail.php?newsid=199483

Local Administration Organizations in Phuket are joining hands with public and private sector to hold 2 year tsunami remembrance event in a simple and respectful manner and invite public to join in all day.

Thai commemoration and blessing ceremonies which include merit making and blessing by nine Buddhist monks will take place in the morning at Loma Park in Patong at 9.30am while the international remembrance ceremony for wreath laying will take place at 6 pm onwards. From 7 pm onwards the Patong beach seafront will be lit up by candle and floating lanterns that will be released in tribute to the victims. The main organizer Phuket Provincial Administration Organization CEO Anchalee Vanich Theppabutr said the ceremonies will be held in respectful and graceful manners. She encouraged the local hotels and businesses to design the candle lighting areas to show local participation and care.

More information can be obtained at www.tatnews.org

from Andaman News TV11 (VHF dial) + Radio Thailand FM90.5 Phuket City, both broadcast to Phang Nga, Krabi & Phuket provinces, 8.30am & later on Phuket Cable channel 1, Thursday 21 December 2006 & www.Thaisnews.com { Our news text and mini-videos can be freely copied , but please give credit to Andaman News TV11 Phuket}

[KRNN]

I think Patong Municipality do not want floating lanterns. They're afraid that those lanterns might get blew up and stuck on trees and burn.

That will be bad, I think. Because many people would want to see lanterns released to Patong sky.

I for one want to.

I just wonder, why, when they can have 5,000 floating lanterns in the ceremony in Phang Nga, can Patong have lanterns, too?

[Jai Dee]

The Thai government is hosting tsunami remembrance events in Phang-Nga while memorial services will also be held in Phuket.

The tsunami memorial services in Phang-Nga will be held in 4 venues, in the morning and evening. It will start with a religious ceremony and memorial service at Ban Nam Kem Tsunami memorial park where Minister to the Prime Minister’s Office Khunying Tipawadi Meksawan will lead participants to lay wreaths.

Another location will be the site where the TOR 813 boat is located. In the afternoon at the Bang Maruan cemetery, the Royal Thai police will perform a memorial service for 500 unidentified victims’ bodies. In the evening, around 6 pm, an interfaith 5 religious ceremony will begin before Princess Ubol Ratana is scheduled to give speech, light the candles and along with participants release 5,000 floating lanterns into the sky.

In Phuket, the Patong beach is prepared for the event as well. In the morning at 9 am a religious ceremony will be held at Loma Park. At 1.30 pm the Japanese Association will hold a memorial service at the Kamala memorial stone. In the evening candle lighting and lanterns will be released on Patong beach.

The Phuket Provincial Administration Organization which is the main organizer, invites the families and friends of victims, general public and visitors to join in the event.

Source: Andaman News TV11 (VHF dial) + Radio Thailand FM90.5 Phuket City - 25 December 2006

[KRNN]

I just wonder, why, when they can have 5,000 floating lanterns in the ceremony in Phang Nga, can Patong have lanterns, too?

Oops.. I mean why can't Patong have lanterns... sorry.

[Jai Dee]

Thailand holds tsunami remembrance ceremonies

PHUKET, Dec 26 (TNA) - Thailand's Andaman Sea coastal provinces hit by an unprecedented tsunami on Boxing Day in 2004 held a memorial service Tuesday commemorating the disaster's 2nd anniversary, when massive waves smashed Thailand's five Andaman coastal provinces and killed over 5,000 persons, local residents, Thai and international tourists.

Relatives of the dead -- including international visitors and local residents -- joined Buddhist religious ceremonies at Mai Khao Beach and Patong Beach in Phuket.

They gave food to monks and laid wreaths at the Wall of Remembrance for the tsunami victims at Maikhao Beach, while 99 Buddhist monks conducted a ritual at Patong Beach.

Thailand's Tourism and Sports Minister Suwit Yordmanee said a candle lighting ceremony will be held Tuesday evening at a park on the Hadyao Beach where 200 people were killed by the tidal waves.

In the southern province of Phang-nga, memorial ceremonies were held at Ban Nam Khem Tsunami Memorial Park and at the Thai maritime police patrol boat, Tor 813, which was carried far inland at Bang Niang in Takhu Pa district.

The police patrol boat was swept by the killer waves beyond the shore as far as two kilometres from the beach.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Surayud Chulanond confirmed Monday that funds donated for the tsunami victims totalled Bt92 million have been under supervision of the Office of the Permanent Secretary in the Prime Minister's Office.

The allocation of the funds can be checked, the prime minister affirmed, noting that his government has directed the agencies concerned to use all the monies appropriately.

Responding to requests from diplomats of seven countries asking for an examination of the disposition of the donated funds, national police spokesman Pol Lt-Gen. Achirawit Supanphesat said the total monies given to the tsunami body identification fund totalled Bt29 million and that now Bt24 million remains on hand.

Accounts of expenditures can be examined on request, the police spokesman said.

Source: TNA - 26 December 2006

[Jai Dee]

Phang Nga and TAT hold ceremony to commemorate Tsunami victims

Phang Nga (พังงา) and Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) have jointly held a ceremony to commemorate Tsunami victims.

Permanent-Secretary to Tourism and Sports Ministry Sakthip Krairirksh (ศักดิ์ทิพย์ ไกรฤกษ์) has joined the ceremony to commemorate the Tsunami disaster which happened two years ago. The ceremony is held at Taguapa (ตะกั่วป่า) District in Phang Nga Province. Eversince morning, visitors were seen pouring into the place to lay flower banquets.

Mr. Sakthip said that after the Tsunami disaster, the government has recognized the importance of installing warning systems. Currently, the government is working at recovering mental conditions of people affected by Tsunami disaster.

Mr. Sakthip also expressed his sorrow to those who have lost their loved ones in the fatal waves.

Source: Thai National News Bureau Public Relations Department - 26 December 2006

[Old Croc]

I just wonder, why, when they can have 5,000 floating lanterns in the ceremony in Phang Nga, can Patong have lanterns, too?

Oops.. I mean why can't Patong have lanterns... sorry.

I was at the ceremony last year on Patong beach. The wind was from the west and the lanterns were drifting back over ther township. Many were caught in the beachside trees. One I was sitting under briefly caught fire. This would be the reason for the reluctance to allow them this year.

A pity, they add to the poignacy of the occasion.

[Jai Dee]

Asian Nations Mark Tsunami Anniversary

Asian Nations Remember the 230,000 Killed in the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami

An unidentified Thai woman offers flowers and prayers during services in Khao Lak, Thailand, Tuesday, Dec. 26, 2006, on the second anniversary of the Asian Tsunami.

BALI, Indonesia Dec 26, 2006 (AP)— Thousands of people fled beaches on Indonesia's resort island of Bali in a tsunami drill Tuesday, kicking off remembrances across Asia two years after devastating waves crashed into coastlines and killed 230,000 people.

Elsewhere across the disaster zone, survivors and mourners were marking the anniversary by visiting mass graves, lighting candles along beaches and observing two minutes of silence. Some volunteers were preparing to plant mangroves, saying they were key to protecting coastal communities.

The magnitude-9.0 earthquake that ripped apart the ocean floor off Indonesia's Sumatra island on Dec. 26, 2004 spawned giant waves that fanned out across the Indian Ocean at jetliner speeds, killing people in a dozen countries and leaving millions homeless.

Walls of water two stories high swept entire villages to sea in Indonesia and Sri Lanka, submerged luxury resorts and fishing communities in Thailand and destroyed thousands of homes in India, where commemorations were small and subdued.

A dozen fishermen watched gulls circle overhead in one hamlet early Tuesday, staring at the sea and telling stories about villagers who died.

"Ever since the tsunami, my brother has done nothing but drink," said Nagarwali, 42, pointing to a man who lost his wife and three children in the waves.

The drill Tuesday which involved real-time warnings sent from the capital to radios along the beach was aimed at raising awareness and at testing technology deployed in the country hardest hit two years ago.

Nearly 167,000 of those killed were from Aceh province on Sumatra where tens of thousands of people still live in temporary homes. The hardest hit zone is nowhere near Bali.

Sirens wailed as masses, many of them school children, briskly walked inland from Bali's shore, accompanied by Indonesia's minister of research and technology and a handful of foreign tourists.

But not everyone was moving.

"I'm not going anywhere. I still have to make some money this morning," said Wati, a woman selling baked corn-on-the-cob on the beach.

Source: Associated Press - 26 December 2006

[Jai Dee]

Two years on, grieving tsunami survivors return to Thailand to remember the dead

KHAO LAK, Thailand: Two years after a tsunami killed her fiance and his parents, British national Dorothy Wilkinson still had a hard time going near the sea and cries when talking of that fateful day.

But like scores of other survivors, the 38-year-old tourist from Surrey, England, has come back to the same beaches where the Dec. 2004 tsunami struck to pay respects to the thousands who died and take another tentative step to rebuilding her own life.

"This is a time to remember those people who we lost," said Wilkinson, who attended a morning memorial service for tsunami victims in Khao Lak and will later lay flowers on the beach where her fiance died. "I'm still sad. I don't want to spend Christmas at home. It is too lonely."

About 300 foreign and Thai tsunami survivors joined a morning ceremony to pay tribute to tsunami victims, observing a minute of silence while Thai police laid flowers and incense on a boat that was washed ashore by the massive waves.

Similar ceremonies were held on at least two other Thai beaches hard hit by the disaster, include Phuket's Patong beach where 99 monks chanted for the dead and dozens of relatives of the dead laid flowers in the sand.

A sign in Patong Beach simply read: "Remembering our friends, Dec. 26, 2004."

Thai officials also used the ceremony to reassure survivors they were putting measures in place — including a tsunami warning system — to prevent future disasters.

"The Thai government will try to do everything it can to prevent the loss of lives and any serious damage as we experienced two years ago," Sakthip Krairerk, a senior official of the tourism and sport ministry, told the crowd.

Authorities were also expected to open a cemetery to hundreds of unidentified tsunami victims later in the day.

The 2004 tsunami killed 8,212 people in Thailand, including foreigners vacationing at the five-star resorts and local residents who mostly lived in the fishing communities that line the Andaman coast.

Some 230,000 people in a dozen countries around the Indian Ocean rim were killed or reported missing and presumed dead by the tsunami.

Source: International Herald-Tribune - 26 December 2006

[Jai Dee]

TSUNAMI ANNIVERSARY

Prayers for last unidentified

Mourners flock to Phuket, Phang-Nga for memorial services

Tearful mourners gathered at beaches and villages in Phuket and Phang-Nga yesterday, where commemoration ceremonies were held to mark the tsunami that pounded the Andaman coast two years ago.

At a cemetery in Phang-Nga's Takua Pa district, Burmese workers could not hold back their tears during a religious ritual for 406 unidentified tsunami victims.

The Thai police's Forensic Science Bureau said the anonymous victims were probably Burmese workers who had slipped over the border to find employment during the peak tourist season prior to the Boxing Day disaster.

Buddhist monks, Muslim clerics and Christian priests took turns blessing the anonymous victims in Phang-Nga, as their individual religions also were unknown.

Police cadets paraded past the cemetery in honour of the victims during the ceremony. The national flags of countries that helped finance the Royal Thai Police's identification of victims were raised to the top of poles at the cemetery.

"We must never forget the victims," said Vinai Buapradit, the governor of Phang-Nga. "So many are still missing. For some of them, our memories are all we have. It is a very profound thing."

Giant walls of seawater swept away entire villages in six Andaman provinces in southern Thailand - and many other Indian Ocean nations on December 26, 2004. An estimated 230,000 people died in a dozen nations. A total of 5,395 locals and foreigners are officially listed as having been lost in Thailand.

The ceremony in Takua Pa was one of many low-key religious events held by local communities and the government. The ceremonies were generally less traumatic than last year's, but for some the pain remained sharp.

In Khao Lak, about 300 Thai and foreign survivors joined a ceremony to pay tribute to the victims, observing a minute of silence while Thai police laid flowers and incense on a boat that was washed ashore by the massive waves.

Some people laid white roses on the beach to pay tribute to the victims, some wept as they looked out across the placid sea that brought shocking death and destruction two years ago.

This is a time to remember those people we lost," said Dorothy Wilkinson, who attended a morning memorial service in Khao Lak and laid flowers on the beach where her fiance died.

"I'm still sad. I don't want to spend Christmas at home. It is too lonely."

Princess Ubolratana Rajakanya attended a night ceremony at Bang Nieng Beach where her son, Khun Poom Jensen, lost his life. Candles were lit and poems of condolence were read by victims' relatives and survivors.

At Baan Nam Khem, a fishing village listed as the community hardest hit by the waves, a ceremony was chaired by Khunying Dhipavadee Meksawan of the Prime Minister's Office. The villagers lodged complaints with the minister, claiming that they had been ignored by the government.

Though busy with tourists, Patong Beach in Phuket also held a tribute to the victims. More than 700 mourners, both Thai and foreign, joined local dignitaries for a memorial ceremony in which 99 monks chanted for the victims and dozens of relatives laid flowers in the sand. A sign laid down on the beach read simply: "Remembering our friends, December 26, 2004."

The officials also used the ceremony to reassure survivors they were putting measures in place, including a tsunami warning system, to prevent future disasters.

"The Thai government will try to do everything it can to prevent the loss of lives and any serious damage as we experienced two years ago," Sakthip Krairerk, a senior official from the Tourism and Sports Ministry, told the crowd.

Though two years have passed, the recovery process has been difficult for many Thai survivors. Aside from grieving for loved ones, many have had to rebuild homes, shops or businesses that were washed away in the disaster.

"If I could die in their place, I would do it," said Beehong Nawalong, a 76-year-old food vendor who brought photographs to the Khao Lak ceremony of her daughter and four grandchildren who died in the tsunami. She also lost her home to the waves.

"I still can't come to terms with it. I cry almost every night," she said, adding that the body of one granddaughter remains missing.

Source: The Nation - 27 December 2006

[NBT TV Phuket]

You can view reports and montage from Tuesday's memorials on http://www.thaisnews.com/vdoclips_list.php

Special Report - 2nd annual Tsunami memorials held in Phuket

Special Report - 2nd annual Tsunami Memorials in Phang Nga

Music video - Winds of Hope song for tsunami memories