Waves of sadness

John Keeble
It was a sad, moving morning on the tsunami beach at Khao Lak today as survivors, relatives and friends remembered the people they lost in the disaster 10 years ago this morning.

Flowers thrown into the sea washed back, floating symbolically amid the light waves breaking on the beach.

Remembrance bunches of flowers were tied to trees.

Dee, from England, was among those on the beach. She lost her partner and his parents and was very badly injured herself. Later, when she had recovered, she returned to help the Tsunami Volunteer Centre.

"This is my place," she told me as she sat on the beach. "It is my place to come and remember."

Isle, from Germany, was remembering her friends. They were killed. Isle and her family lived because, that year, they had not been able to join the others.

25km away, a day of ceremonies - including Buddhist and Muslim - were being held at Ban Nam Khem where the fishing fleet and most of the village's inhabitants were lost.

Later today, the prime minister of Thailand will attend a memorial ceremony at Bang Niang when 2,000 people died, including the King's grandson, and many tourists.

 

 

Quiet before the tsunami anniversary

John Keeble
The tsunami areas of Khao Lak and Bang Niang, on Thailand's Andaman coast, were very quiet today as tourists mostly stayed at their hotels on prepaid Christmas packages.

But 100 tsunami volunteers, partners and families gathered at Walkers Inn, now a popular place to stay in Khao Lak but once, soon after the tsunami in 2004, the base for the Tsunami Volunteer Centre.

The volunteers, from all over the world, played key roles ranging from getting in the bodies to building houses. Some 6,000 gave their time and their money to help.

Yesterday old friends met for a Christmas lunch (photo below). There was a hugging and hand-shaking ... memories of the tragedy and the way they had helped.

Tomorrow, Boxing Day, many people will be on the beach at 10.10am to mark the moment when the tsunami hit land and killed more than 4,000 people on this 30km stretch of coast.

The wave

John Keeble
The final preparations were being made on Thailand's Andaman coast today (24th) for big commemoration ceremonies on the 10th anniversary of the Indian Ocean tsunami. The tsunami struck coastlines on Decemeber 26th 2004, killing about 250,000 people in coastal area from Indonesia to Africa.

Survivors, relatives of the dead and foreign volunteers who helped after the tsunami struck Thailand were arriving here to join local people to remember the tragedy. Phuket, the smaller islands, and the Krabe coastline were also hit by the waves but the death toll was lower than the Khao Lak-Bang Niang coast and the fishing village of Ban Nam Khem. The victims included the King's grandson.

In Thai fashion, the commemoration will have many physical and emotional levels: the Prime Minister and top politicians will attend the ceremony at Bang Niang, where more than 2,000 tourists and local people died, and many senior figures will be at another ceremony at Ban Nam Khem, where a similar number of Thai and Burmese people were killed. But, in contrast to the ceremonies, the events will have markets, leisure areas and even amusements for the children. Local rumours doubt that anyone except invited guests will get in but I shall try.

Today, I joined the emergency and building services getting ready the Bang Niang memorial -- I lived nearly opposite the site for five years but recetly it has been concreted over and extended with elaborate structures.

When I look at it, I remember the police boat that was swept more than a kilometre inland as it had been for years ... surrounded by grass, just in front of a rubber plantation.

And I think of the people, the stories, I heard when I came to Bang Niang two years after the tsunami: the wife of a man who became a friend was washed from the beach to almost her home behind where the police boat came to rest; the woman who owned the struggling resort where I first stayed told of her sister having her young daughter wrenched from her arms by the water; the tailor who suddenly told me that he had not be able to save his baby who drowned in the shop where they still lived ... there were so many stories then.

Here are some of the images from today: The memorial area in Bang Niang and the memorial park at Ban Nam Khem (where foreign volunteers held an event to talk about their experiences).