THOUSANDS prayed at mass graves on Wednesday to mark the 14th anniversary of the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami, one of the worst natural disasters in history, even as aid workers raced to help victims of the latest killer wave to hit Indonesia. The annual memorial came after the long-buried remains of dozens of Boxing Day tsunami victims were found last week in Aceh province, which was devastated by the 9.1-magnitude “megathrust” earthquake.

Nearly 170,000 people died in disaster-prone Indonesia when the quake struck Aceh, a predominantly Muslim province in the northern tip of Sumatra island, sparking massive waves that also slammed into coastal areas as far away as Somalia. The disaster killed about 50,000 people in other countries around the Indian Ocean, bringing total deaths to about 220,000. The commemorations are this year particularly poignant after a volcano-triggered tsunami struck another part of the country without warning on Saturday, sweeping over popular beaches and inundating tourist hotels and coastal communities, killing over 400.

Thousands paid tribute to the 2004 tsunami victims at a mass grave in Aceh Besar regency where nearly 47,000 are buried under a grassy field dotted with black rocks meant to symbolise a tomb.

Last week, the remains of more than 30 victims of the 2004 tsunami were found by villagers near a construction site of a newly built housing complex in Aceh. Another dozen bodies were later discovered at the same site. The first victim identified was Taufik Alamsyah’s wife, who still had her driver’s licence in a wallet stuffed into her pants pocket. “I could not believe that I found my wife after all these years of searching and praying,” he said in a recent interview.The 50-year-old civil servant has now buried wife Yunida’s remains in the backyard of his new house, where he lives with his current wife.

Alamsyah also lost his five-year-old daughter and in-laws in the 2004 disaster, and has suffered from depression ever since. The distraught father, who comes back to his old house every year to pray, grabbed his daughter in the chaos, but the force of the water swept her away. “If she was alive, she’d probably be in college now,” he said.

Published in Dawn, December 27th, 2018