Banda Aceh (AFP) – Tearful mourners prayed on Thursday as ceremonies were held across Asia to remember the 220,000 people who were killed two decades ago when a tsunami hit coastlines around the Indian Ocean in one of the world's worst natural disasters.
A 9.1-magnitude earthquake off Indonesia's western tip on December 26, 2004, generated a series of waves as high as 30 metres that pummelled the coastline of 14 countries from Indonesia to Somalia.