Activities organised to commemorate tsunami in Thai coastal areas

BANGKOK, December 26 (TNA) - Thailand's southern provinces along the Andaman coast organised activities on Monday to commemorate the 7th anniversary of a giant tsunami battering the areas, the first-ever in the country, in late 2004. In Phang Nga, the Thai province hardest hit by the 2004 tsunami, a memorial and merit making ceremonies of three religions, Buddhist, Christian and Islamic, were held by a local administrative body at a tsunami memorial park in Baan Nam Khem of Bang Muang Sub-district and in Baan Bang Niang of Kuek Kak Sub-district, in which relatives of those killed in the regional tsunami, both Thais and foreigners, took part to lay flowers for the demised. In Krabi, similar events were held at the Phi Phi Island Cabana Hotel in Aow Nang Sub-district, where the Krabi governor presented a stainless wreath to an environmental conservation club to be laid undersea, some 800 metres off the Phi Phi Island at over 20 metres depth. In Phuket, simple memorial and merit making events were held at a coastal international tsunami memorial cemetery in Mai Khao area of Thalang District, where relatives of both local and foreign tsunami victims attended. The 2004 tsunami, triggered by a strongest earthquake in the Indian Ocean off Indonesia, ravaged Thailand's six coastal Andaman provinces, including Phang Nga, Phuket, Krabi, Ranong, Trang and Satun, leading to thousands of fatalities and injuries, as well as massive damages. (TNA)