It was like 23 thousand atomic bombs. 20 years since the deadliest tsunami in history

Catastrophe in Indonesia caused around 230 thousand deaths. It generated waves over 30 meters high and was one of the worst natural disasters of the last hundred years.

A siren sounded today in Indonesia, as survivors and families of victims began to pay tribute to the memory of the more than 220,000 people who died in a tsunami that hit the Indian Ocean 20 years ago.

A December 26, 2004, a magnitude 9.1 earthquake off the west coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra generated gigantic waves that swept across Indonesia, the Sri Lanka, India, Thailand and nine other Indian Ocean countriescausing victims even in distant Somalia.

At their maximum speed, the waves broke at almost 800 kilometers per hour and reached heights of up to 30 meters.

The most affected area was the north of island of Sumatra, where more than 120 thousand people diedout of a total of 165,708 across Indonesia.

An official ceremony at the main mosque in the capital of Indonesia’s Aceh province, Banda Aceh, kicked off a series of events across Asia, with a three minute siren duration at the precise moment of the tidal wave.

A minute of silence was observed, before a visit to a mass grave where they are buried around 50 thousand bodies and a prayer in Banda Aceh, in northern Sumatra.

In total, the tsunami caused 226,408 deaths, according to EM-DAT, a recognized global disaster database.

Religious ceremonies are scheduled for today throughout the region, as well as wakes on the beaches, where Many tourists who celebrated Christmas in the sun also lost their lives.

In Thailand, more than five thousand people diedhalf of which are foreign tourists, and three thousand remain missing.

In a hotel in Phang Nga province, an exhibition was set up about the tsunami and a documentary is planned to be shownwhile government and United Nations officials will talk about disaster preparedness.

In Sri Lanka, where more than 35,000 people lost their lives, families of victims and survivors must board the Ocean Queen Express train bound for Peraliya (90 kilometers south of Colombo), where the carriages were swept away, killing around a thousand people .

Also planned are religious ceremonies — Buddhists, Hindus, Christians and Muslims – throughout the island.

As waves also reached Africa, killing 300 people in Somalia and more than a hundred in Maldives.

According to experts, the lack of a properly coordinated warning system in 2004 it worsened the consequences of the catastrophe.

Since then, about 1,400 stations around the world have reduced tsunami warning times to just a few minutes.

The earthquake generated waves more than 30 meters high, releasing a energy equivalent to 23 thousand times the power of the Hiroshima atomic bomb.