Volunteers spruce up neglected Phuket tsunami memorial

Dec 25, 2011, 3:37 GMT

Bangkok - Expatriates in Phuket spruced up the neglected tsunami Wall of Remembrance in preparation for the anniversary of the 2004 Boxing Day disaster that claimed more than 5,000 lives in southern Thailand, reports said Sunday.

Volunteers from the USS Pinckney destroyer, anchored off Phuket island, the Phuket US Navy League, environmentalists and other expatriates on Saturday replaced 45 flagpoles on the wall in Mai Khao district of Phuket, and gave it a new coat of paint for Monday's memorial service, the Phuket Gazette said.

'I've lived in Phuket for a long time and I've heard over and over again, as it gets closer to December 26 each year, that the Tsunami Wall doesn't have any maintenance budget,' US Navy League head Brad Kenny told the paper.

This year, district authorities invited foreign volunteers to come fix up the memorial wall themselves, he said.

The volunteers replaced the flags of 45 countries that had lost citizens in the tsunami.

'Some of the flags were just strings hanging from the poles,' Kenny said.

The wall was constructed in memory of the estimated 5,400 people who lost their lives on Thailand's Andaman Sea coast in the December 26, 2004 tsunami triggered by a 9.3 magnitude earthquake.

Nearly half of the victims in Thailand were foreign tourists vacationing atn beach resorts such as Phuket Island, Phi Phi Island and Phangnga province, more than 600 kilometres south of Bangkok.

The disaster claimed more than 230,000 dead in 14 countries rimming the Indian Ocean.

Phuket will hold several memorial events on Monday, including Buddhist, Christian and Muslim rites at the wall and a candle ceremony on Patong beach.