Prayers and tears mark 20 years since the Indian Ocean tsunami that killed some 230,000 people

People have started gathering in prayer and are visiting mass graves in Indonesia’s Aceh province to mark 20 years since the massive Indian Ocean tsunami, one of modern history’s worst natural disasters. A powerful 9.1-magnitude earthquake off the coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra on Dec. 26, 2004, triggered a tsunami that killed around 230,000 people across a dozen countries, reaching as far as East Africa. Some 1.7 million people were displaced, mostly in the four worst-affected countries: Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India and Thailand. More than 170,000 people died in Indonesia alone.