Un omaggio floreale sul monumento nazionale dedicato al peggiore disastro della nazione a Peraliya, 96 km a sud di Colombo, Sri Lanka

Relatives of the 2004 tsunami victims pay floral tribute at the national monument to mark the worst disaster the country faced, at Peraliya near Galle, 96 kms south of Colombo, on 26 December 2010. The Boxing Day tsunami of 2004 caused a disaster yet to be recorded in modern history of the island nation of Sri Lanka. It recorded 35,322 confirmed deaths, 21,411 injured and 516,150 persons displaced. The worst single site of casualties was at Peraliya where a passenger train carrying workers to the capital was swept towards land by the tidal waves which carried some carriages as far as one kilometre and causing the deaths of over a thousand passengers. The 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake that occurred at 00:58:53 UTC on Sunday, December 26, 2004, with an epicentre off the west coast of Sumatra, Indonesia and a magnitude of between 9.1 and 9.3, killed over 230,000 people in fourteen countries, and inundated coastal communities with waves up to 30 meters (100 feet) high. Indonesia was the hardest hit, followed by Sri Lanka, India, and Thailand.
(Ansa/EPA/M.A.PUSHPA KUMARA)