Aceh marks 100 days after tsunami

Acehnese people pray during a mass prayer to mark 100 days after the 26 December 2004 quake and tidal wave disaster, at Kampung Baru village in Aceh Besar. PHOTO: AFP

The 100-day commemoration, a tradition in much of Indonesia after any death, was centered at the Baiturrahim mosque, one of the few structures in the capital's Ulee Lheue district left standing after the giant waves struck.

About 5,000 people crammed into the mosque and tents erected around it to recite prayers for the roughly 230,000 people killed by the force of the sea, which also leveled much of the province's coastal area.

Muslim cleric Nur Hasballah told the gathering that the tsunami had been a result of a lack of faith and the destruction of the coastal mangrove forests, which he said God had planted to provide protection from tsunamis.

"The disaster that befell Aceh is the result of our own doing, because we have been cruel and had not been thankful," he said.

"We have forgotten God and therefore it is only fitting that he warned us. We have also destroyed our own earth," he said.

"We should not blame God for the December 26 disaster, but we should blame ourselves. Now we should apologize to God for all our mistakes and vow not to repeat them again," Hasballah said.