The National Safety Day with a two-minute silence will be observed from 9.25am to 9.27am today (26) in remembrance of the tsunami victims of 2004 December, the Disaster Management Center (DMC) said.
The Tsunami catastrophe which battered Sri Lanka in 2004 had a catastrophic impact on the southern, western, eastern and Northern provinces of the country. Nearly two thirds of the country’s coastal belt, i.e. 13 administrative districts bore the brunt of the disaster.
Approximately 35, 000 lives were lost while 5000 were reported missing and 95,000 others were deprived of their livelihood in the worst natural disaster ever to hit Sri Lanka.
Sri Lanka this year will commemorate the 11th anniversary of the disaster which struck 13 out of 14 coastal districts in the island.
On Sunday, December 26, 2004, the northeastern and southern coastal areas of Sri Lanka were devastated by tsunami tidal waves which swept across the Indian Ocean, following a major earthquake with a magnitude of 9 on the Richter scale, west off the Indonesian island of Sumatra.
In a symbolic gesture of creating awareness among people as regards the disaster mitigation, December 26 of each year was named as “National Safety Day” on a proposal made by the then Minister of Disaster Management, Mahinda Samarasinghe with the approval of the Cabinet.
