Relatives attend religious services for those killed in tsunami in Thai South

PHANG-NGA, THAILAND, December 26 (TNA) - Thai and foreign relatives of those killed on the so-called "Boxing Day 2004", when a disastrous tsunami hit many southern Thai provinces along the Andaman coast, perform religious services for their loved lost ones. Foreign relatives of those killed and villagers of Baan Nam Khem in Phang-nga Province offered alms, as a merit making, to Buddhist monks on early Friday, while many of them laid wreaths at the Tsunami Memorial. At Takua Pa Hospital in the province, doctors, nurses and other staff offered dried food to 19 Buddhist monks to bless the souls of those who passed away in the disaster a decade ago. A total of 482 foreigners and 504 Thais received treatment at the hospital during the tragic event. At Mai Khao Cemetery in Thalang District of nearby Phuket Province, three religious services were performed, including the Buddhist, Christian and Islamic ones, in which participating people stood in silence for tsumani victims of 45 nationalities, including Swedish, British, American, German and Japanese. The disastrous tsunami on December 26, 2004 killed more than 220,000 people, most of whom were in the northern Indonesian Aceh Province and thousands of whom were in Sri Lanka, Myanmar, India and Thailand. Thailand alone saw 5,395 people killed by the great tsunami, about half of them were foreign holidaymakers. (TNA)