**Countries across the Indian Ocean are marking the fifth anniversary of the catastrophic tsunami that killed almost 250,000 people.**In Indonesia’s Aceh province, where almost 170,000 lost their lives, prayers were offered in mosques and at the side of mass graves.
Bhuddist monks in the Thai beach resort of Phang Nga were joined by hundreds of mourners to pay tribute to the dead.
Other ceremonies were expected in the 14 countries hit by the massive wave.
“None of my family members survived in the tsunami,” Siti Aminah, 72, told AFP news agency at a grave site near Banda Aceh, Aceh’s capital.
“My children, grandchildren, brothers, sisters, they all have gone and left me alone here.”
German survivor Ruschitschka Adolf, 73, was in the Thai beach resort village of Patong for the anniversary with his wife Katherina, who waded into the turquoise seawater to lay white roses for the dead.
“We come and stay here because we are alive,” Mr Adolf told Reuters news agency.
Preparing for the worst
It was a disaster on an unprecedented scale, the BBC’s Rachel Harvey reports from Bangkok.
Apart from the deaths, hundreds of thousands people lost their homes and livelihoods.
No single agency or government could have been prepared for the challenges the tsunami presented, our South-East Asia correspondent says.
But in the early days and weeks, particularly in the areas worst affected by the tsunami, the emergency response was chaotic.
Things only settled down and began to function effectively once clear lines of communication and coordination were established.
Since then, the UN has been recognised as the body which organises who does what and where in a disaster zone.
Individual agencies report in, register their particular skills and get assigned a task or geographic area.
It is known as the Cluster System, and it was used to good effect after the recent Padang earthquake in Indonesia, our correspondent says.