Colombo: Sri Lanka Friday observed the fourth anniversary of the devastating 2004 tsunami that claimed more than 40,000 lives and displaced more than half a million people.

An island-wide two-minute silence was observed in the morning as friends and relatives of those killed in one of the worst natural disasters
in the country's history gathered in coastal areas to mark the event.

A train engine caught in the tsunami has been repaired and was put into service for the first time in four years for a trip to the southern tourist town of Peraliya, 100 km south of the
capital Colombo, in time to mark the two-minute silence.

More than 1,000 people were killed when the train was swamped by the tsunami.

Four years after the disaster, some of the people displaced by the tsunami still live in temporary shelters.

 

Source : ians