India, Dec. 27 -- Sri Lanka on Friday commemorated the 21st anniversary of the devastating Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004, which killed over 35,000 people in the island nation. The national ceremony was marked by a two-minute silence observed across the island between 9.25 am and 9.27 am, coinciding with the time the giant waves struck the country's coastline on December 26, 2004.
The main commemoration took place at Peraliya, about 90 km south of Colombo, the site of the worst rail disaster in Sri Lanka's history, where over 1,000 people were killed when the tsunami hit a passenger train.The Ocean Queen train, travelling from Colombo central station to the southern city of Matara, was hit by massive sea waves of over 1,000 feet that swept a...