Tsunami victims remembered two years later

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
Two years after the devastating Indian Ocean tsunami crashed into Asian coastlines, survivors and other mourners Monday will visit mass graves, light candles along beaches, and listen to temple bells chiming to mark the moment the 2004 waves hit. "We hope this will be part of the healing process for those who lost loved ones," said Chamroen Tankasem, a government official in southern Thailand, a tropical paradise which turned into a graveyard in a matter of minutes. "It will also help us remember what happened, what we have learned since ... and what more needs to be done for the people affected," Tankasem said. The magnitude 9.0 earthquake that ripped apart the ocean floor off Indonesia's Sumatra island on December 26, 2004 spawned giant waves that fanned out across the Indian Ocean at jetliner speeds, killing an estimated 230,000 people in a dozen nations.