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A wall of water as high as 30 meters triggered by an undersea earthquake off the Indonesian island of Sumatra, crashed ashore with little warning on December 26, 2004, killing 200,000 people in 13 countries.
Indonesian survivors
In Indonesia's Banda Aceh, survivors gathered in neighborhood mosques or homes to remember those killed.
Indonesia was the worst hit country with the number of dead and missing over 166,000.
Massive reconstruction aid in Banda Aceh has rebuilt a new city on top of the ruins, and many survivors are only now putting memories of the waves behind them.
"The psychology of the Acehnese people is starting to recover after five years," Eva Susanti, who lost 125 members of her extended family in the Banda Aceh area, said.
Some locals such as Taufik Rahmat say they have moved on, helped along by new homes in the Banda Aceh region following one of the largest foreign fund-raising exercises.
But still pockets of people in his village remain homeless.
"Not all elements have been fulfilled, I think about 80 per cent to 90 per cent of the people still don't have proper housing," he said.
Many former residents are now too frightened of the sea to rebuild close to the water.
Thai tragedy
In Thailand, 5,398 people were killed, including several thousand foreign tourists. The waves swamped six coastal provinces, turning some of the world's most beautiful beaches into mass graves. Many are still missing.
Almost all of those killed were vacationing on or around the southern island of Phuket, a region that had contributed as much as 40 per cent of Thailand's annual tourism income.
Tsunami aid efforts have mostly finished, Patrick Fuller, Tsunami Communications Coordinator at the Red Cross, said.
"A lot of the physical reconstruction has ended," he said. "There are some major infrastructure projects that are still going on. There are some road projects, longer term projects. But all the housing projects are pretty much wrapped up."
Mixed recovery
The Red Cross has built 51,000 houses over the past five years, mostly in the Maldives and Indonesia.
But people in Thailand say they need more than new buildings, clean-water plants and other infrastructure.
"The economy has not recovered," said Rotjana Phraesrithong, who is in charge of the Baan Tharn Namchai Orphanage, opened in 2006 for 35 children who lost parents in the tsunami.
Dozens of small hotels and resorts are up for sale in Phang Nga, a province north of Phuket whose forested coastline includes Nam Khem and the serene Khao Lak beach, two of Thailand's worst tsunami-hit areas.
"More than 100 of these small hotels and retail tour operators are looking to sell their operations because they can't obtain loans from banks to keep going," said Krit Srifa, president of the Phang Nga Tourism Association.
"Many small operators are still in debt after renovations since the tsunami and many just haven't recovered financially."
Tourism down
On Khao Lak beach, where the tsunami killed more than 3,000 people, there is little physical evidence of it aside from occasional Tsunami Hazard Zone signs and color-coded evacuation maps.
A symbol of the catastrophe, the Sofitel Magic Lagoon where more than 300 guests and staff died, reopened last month as the 298-room JW Marriott Khao Lak Resort & Spa.
In Patong, tourism is down but few blame the tsunami.
"The only time people seem to talk about the tsunami is in December during the anniversary," said Pattahanant Ketkaew, a 27-year-old manager at Phuket2Go tours near Patong beach.
"Tourism is off but that's because of the global economy."
PHOTO CAPTION
Pictures of foreign tourists killed in the 2004 tsunami at the Bang Muang Cemetery in Thailand's Phang Nga province, December 26, 2009.
Al-Jazeera
