CHENNAI: Thousands of fishing families who survived an avalanche of water brought on by a massive sea earthquake three years ago gathered on beaches in south India on Wednesday to remember the dead.

Parents who lost children thronged local beaches and fishing hamlets in India’s worst-hit Nagapattinam district where around 6,500 people died in southern Tamil Nadu state.

“The memorial today is just a symbol for me where all of us collect to grieve together,” said Kaveri, 37, who lost a son and daughter when the tsunami hit the fishing hamlet of Keechankuppam, 340 kilometres south of state capital Chennai.

“But then we are grieving every day.” Standing by a poster that bore a picture of a boy taken by the tsunami and emblazoned with the words “We start our day thinking of you,” 10-year-old Eswari remembered her friend Sendhil.

“He was my classmate and my best friend and we used to play everyday,” said the fifth-grader, in tears.

Fishing families and local officials also held a memorial procession Wednesday morning through the district’s main Nagapattinam town, followed by a ceremony that saw children offer flowers in remembrance of the dead.

Official figures say 12,000 people died in India, two-thirds of them in Tamil Nadu. Other groups put the toll at 16,000 including the Andaman and Nicobar island chain in the Indian Ocean.

Tens of thousands of fishing families also lost boats crucial to daily survival and rights groups say many are still waiting for new homes.

“More than 20,000 tsunami-affected families are still living without a roof,” said S.M. Prithviraj, head of local charity, Voices from the Margins, which is lobbying for housing for the tsunami survivors.

A state tsunami relief official admitted some housing for tsunami survivors in Chennai was still in the process of being built.

“The construction of 13,000 tenements for the tsunami victims is still pending,” C.V. Shanker said.

“These will be completed by the stipulated deadline of March 2008.”The United Nations said 72,000 homes have been completed or are in the process of being built.

But in some cases, fishermen do not want to move to the new homes. In Keechankuppam, nearly 700 new houses constructed about one kilometre from the beach are lying vacant.

“We have lived by the sea for generations and we do not want to move out,” said fisherman Murugan, 41, who is married to the grieving Kaveri.

Murugan said the fishermen needed to be by the water to watch for the colour changes that signify a shoal of fish moving by and quickly put out to sea.—AFP