Asia remembers tsunami

Commemorative ceremonies marking the second anniversary of the Boxing Day tsunami will get underway across South East-Asia later this morning.

More than 200,000 people were killed on this day two years ago, when waves as high as 10 metres inundated fishing villages and tourist centres from Indonesia to Thailand, Sri Lanka to the east coast of Africa.

Twenty-six Australians lost their lives when the tsunami hit - most of them on the tourist island of Phuket in southern Thailand.

The tsunami was caused by an undersea earthquake in the Indian Ocean, which had a magnitude of 9.3.

At the time there was no tsunami warning system in the Indian Ocean, but earlier this month the first of a series of tsunami warning buoys was installed near the Nicobar islands.

Commemorative ceremonies are expected to be smaller this year than in the past.

Commemorative ceremonies are also expected in Aceh and Sri Lanka.

The Australian Red Cross says two years on from the tsunamis the lessons have not been fully heeded.

The international relief agency says risk reduction must become a higher priority in disaster-prone areas right around the world.

The head of the Australian Red Cross Robert Tickner says there is significant under-spending on insulating areas against the effects of disaster.

"We need to build better so that constructions will withstand earthquakes and to educate local populations about what to do when a disaster strikes," he said.

He says in New Orleans, if levees had been build the city would not have been flooded.

"So we've got to learn those lessons of disasters especially in view of the fact that global warming means more disasters more frequently."

And he says there is still a long way to go in rebuilding tsunami hit areas.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200612/s1818227.htm