Colombo, Sri Lanka, January 01, 2015 /PressReleasePing/ - Catastropes and Disasters can occur anywhere, anytime, at any location, to any society. Asian Tsunami-2004 is considered to be the devastating most disaster of the last millennium's recorded history.

Asian Tsunami of 2004 devastated almost 9 major oceanic sectors of Asia, leaving over 5 million people as homeless, hundreds of thousands as displaced, and a toll rate exceeding 2,37,000.

The devastative consequences of such ostentatious cataclysms pose detrimental damages to the global communities, their infrastructures and in their overall socio-economic set-ups.

The Tsunami was triggered up by an earthquake of 9.1 magnitude having one of the history's biggest tremors, that caused tore up of the sea-bed along the Indian Ocean and made it bed-off through the coasts of more than a dozen countries around the Indian ocean rim. Being closest to the quake's epicenter, Indonesia's Aceh, became the first-hit and the hardest-hit area. On the beginning, due to the intense quake, that crashed the buildings and collapsed the towns, the people became panic and frighteningly rushing through the streets and roads. 20 minutes later, almost a 7 to 10 meters high, giant wall of seawater carrying along trees, towers, coastal installations, electric poles, buses and trains, surged to the landside with an un-counterable strength to eradicate communities, leaving millions as homeless, displaced and over 2,37,000 casualties across the oceanic rim.

The horrific, massive waves roaring across the oceanic rim, hitting Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Maldives, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Sumatra, ,Thailand, and reached the East African zones of Kenya, Somalia and Tanzania.

Still, there remain numerous areas, where the Tsunami victim populations have not recovered their lives fully. And still there remain certain communities populated in the coastal areas, that prone to high risks of natural calamities.

Eradicating the communities, devastating the towns and cities, ruining the lands the Tsunami 2004 left billions of the human eyes teared, hearts sorrowed and the nations mourned-- marking one of the toughest moral tests for the rest of humanity- a hardest trial of human solidarity, for the whole world.

In order to mark the decade anniversary's solemn inscriptive commemorations, people from different walks of life along with thousands of the survivors, government officials, academicians, diplomats, political leaders and the victims' families gathered on the shorelines in the coastal zones of Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, Sumatra and Thailand.

Moments of silence were observed at several places to mark the moment that set fixed the entire world in grief.

Besides the several memorials paid by victims, survivors and the general public, the academic commencements of Tsunami commemoration also became events of note. The enormous observance also divulged a Post-doc Multiversity KAKHTAH, to be established in Asia for higher research studies on disaster risk reduction.

Special featured reports and dedicatory contents have been published by the AP, BBC, CBC, ContentCo, Reuters and many other regional and local news dissemination services.

"Crying onlookers took part in beachside memorials and religious services across Asia to mark the 10th anniversary of the Indian Ocean tsunami that slained more than a quarter million people in one of the modern history's worst natural disasters", says AP.

Indonesia's Aceh province--the hardest-hit-area, marked the Tsunami's first decade anniversary with abundant disquiets and trepidations. Memorial services were regulated and led by the Vice President Jusuf Kalla, who with other officials, laid flowers on the Siron Mass Grave, where thousands of Tsunami victims were buried.

Mr. Kalla, the Vice President of Indonesia, paid thanks to the nations, organizations, donors and the individuals who helped Aceh people in their 'need hour'- a moment that was unprecedented in their previous history of tragedies. Awards were given to the ambassadors of the nations, that donated during the hard-moments.

In Sri Lanka, the Tsunami's first decade anniversary was marked in different coastal areas, which were among the hard-hit zones of Tsunami. An ' Ocean Queen Express train, which became derailed by the powerful devastative Tsunami waves on 26 Dec. 2004, was again beset on track lines as a 'symbol of tragedy'. The train was commemoratively cenotaphed and symbolized to memorialize the moment, when this train was hit by the toppling waves. Over 1750 people were died in a single blow, making the world history's biggest rail disaster.

A ten days summit has been organized by academicians of SAARC region universities to mark the 10th anniversary of Tsunami. Led by Justice (R) S.S. Paru, the summit ascribes resolution of institutional significance concerning the disaster risk reduction. Tsunami's 'Un-sung Heroes' awards have been bestowed on the individuals M.S.S. Salawal Salah of Galle, Mr. Faisar N.M. Ms. from Matara, Ms. Razana, Nashika Unais and Dr. Bareera N. B. from Pakistan, who paid their consummate and proficient services in different projects during the rehabilitation phase of the catastrophe aftermaths.

In Thailand, where foreigners from 38 countries were died, beside the local victims, memorial events were held at Khao Lak. People placed flowers on a memorial wall, where the name of the victims were inscribed.

Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-Ocha led a memorial event at Khao Lak. He joined the relatives of the victims and laid a wreath of remembrance at a beached police boat site, that has become the symbolized sign of Tsunami for the Thai nation. The police boat 813 was bounced nearly 2 km away near Phuket.

"This heavy loss serves as a reminder and lesson for everyone" told the prime minister to the participants.

According to the AP, survivors of the tsunami along with bereaved relatives from Germany, Austria and Switzerland held a memorial service on a beach in Khao Lak, Thailand. They walked into the waves and lay flowers, while diplomats placed wreaths on the sand.

The victims' close relatives, the survivors and other people from the affected communities expressed their feelings on the occasion.

I cannot forget the smell of the air, the water at that time ... even after 10 years," says Mr. Teuku a 51 years od resident of Indonesia.

"I cannot forget how I lost my wife, my kids, my house," he said sobbing, recounting that he refused to believe for years that they had died but finally gave up looking for them, report the AP correspondents.

As, Dec. 26, 2014, categorically marked the 2004-AsianTsunami's 1st decade's termination-finale, along with an adjacent compliance-amenability to the conclusive year for the UN's 'Step-up Initiative', the observance got an extraordinary extended considerateness, in academic realms too.

According to an institutional note from SAARC, a fortnight confluence summit under the aegis of UNISDR, titled 'Decade Summit of Asian Tsunami' has been organized in Sri Lanka, to mark the Tsunami's first decade anniversary.

The Decade Summit of Asian Tsunami is intended to switch on and amplify the critical issues of the UN's DRR-HFA for the , says the summit's official release on the occasion.

Following the record tweeting-i.e. over 4.3 million tweets, that were propelled up and sent to UTC on IDDR-2014, the Tsunami Decade Summit, also put high emphasis on age inclusive DRR frame-working.

The United Nations' top official to deal with the natural disasters' subject-matter, Margareta Wahlstrom says from Geneva, "A decade since a tsunami killed 230,000 people in Southeast Asia, the world must do more to prepare for extreme weather.", reports the Fox News.

"Something odd is going on" with wild weather noticeably increasing recently, bringing more risks, adds further the special representative of the U.N. secretary-general for disaster risk reduction, Margareta Wahlstrom, according to the source.

A world conference is being organized in Japan by 3/2015, to help set the next stage concerning the disaster preparedness, that must go beyond the early warning system since Tsunami 2004.

According to the source, Wahlstrom told The Associated Press that the world is better prepared for calamities of the scale of the massive earthquake on Dec. 26, 2004 that triggered a 100-foot-high tsunami which spread death across a dozen countries. However, she says much more needs to be done, reports the Fox News.

Besides the utmost wreckage-desolations, that quite austerely devastated and shattered almost 9 main oceanic sectors of Asia, including the hard-hit coastal zones of Sri Lanka, Indonesia, India and Sumatra, and its unprecedented scale of destruction, Tsunami-2004 brought forth a way to measure the 'real impact factor' in terms of the actual 'on-ground renderings' conceded thereupon.

An opinion poll was customizedly commissioned in hard-hit areas, in order to have the refugees, the survivors and victims their own say for-- 'who did what for them'--- that brought some meant-content in the aftermaths of the crucial most, and the highest-observed devastating catastrophe of the last two millennia's recorded history of natural cataclysms.

Press Contact:
Dr. Alex Jayawardene
Tsunami Decade Summit
Colombo, Sri Lanka
+94715698777
http://www.unisdr.org/