Sri Lanka commemorated the deaths of thousands of victims in 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami by observing two-minute silence and religious observation across the country.

The tsunami of December 2004 devastated over two-thirds of Sri Lanka’s coastline. Over 50,000 lives were lost and more than 100,000 households were displaced. Saifulbahri Ismail looks at the problems facing Sri Lanka in housing reconstruction and the worst train disaster in history,

Duncan Ridgley says "it was like going through five Viking battles in a day".

Sri Lanka yesterday commemorated the 20th anniversary of the devastating 2004 tsunami, a tragedy that claimed over 35,000 lives and caused widespread destruction. It was one of the deadliest natural disasters faced in history,

The Boxing Day tsunami interrupted a civil war, triggered the worst rail accident in history and shattered the lives of millions. Twenty years on, those who escaped certain death share their stories.

Ani Naqvi remembers the Boxing Day tsunami 20 years ago not just as the day when she nearly lost her life but one that gave her new purpose. She had just turned 33 and was visiting a friend in the Sri Lankan surfing village of Arugam Bay on 26 December 2004 when one of the largest earthquakes ever recorded struck off the coast of Indonesia,

A two minutes’ silence will be observed island-wide today (26 December) on National Safety Day from 9.25 a.m. to 9.27 a.m. in memory of all who lost their lives in the 2004 tsunami and other natural disasters in Sri Lanka, the Disaster Management Center (DMC) said.

Early warning systems and fostering public awareness have improved. But gaps remain in policy implementation and infrastructure maintenance.

Dr Mahesh Gunasekara was working as director of the 200-bed Kanthale Hospital and looking forward to starting a new job with the charity in early 2005. He said: “Until it happened, we never knew the meaning of the word ‘tsunami’. For us, it was just a Japanese word.”

Tsunami and earthquake data still isn’t shared widely around the world. Local authorities and experts often don’t communicate the risk to residents of flood-prone communities.

People gathered in India and Sri Lanka on Thursday to mark 20 years since the Indian Ocean tsunami struck , killing thousands of people. (AP video shot by Mahesh Kumar and Eranga Jayawardena)