Mourners gathered at a memorial ceremony in Ban Nam Khem on Thursday, a small fishing village in Phang Nga province in Thailand. (AP Video shot by Tian Macleod Ji)

In Thailand, people gathered at a memorial ceremony in Ban Nam Khem, a small fishing village in Phang Nga province that bore the brunt of the devastating wave in the country. The tsunami claimed the lives of over 8,000 people in Thailand. Many remain missing and nearly 400 bodies are unclaimed to this day.

A 9.1 magnitude earthquake beneath the Indian Ocean on December 26 2004 triggered the tsunami which killed more than 200,000 people. The Prime Minister was among those paying tribute, saying his thoughts are with the “millions of people who were affected”.

Tearful mourners across Asia have commemorated the 220,000 people who died two decades ago when a tsunami hit coastlines around the Indian Ocean.

Survivors of the Boxing Day Tsunami and relatives of those who were killed joined memorials in Thailand today on the 20th anniversary of the disaster. Footage shows families laying flowers in Phuket and Phang Nga provinces on the east coast of the country,

Today marks the 20th anniversary since the devastating Boxing Day when a 9.1 magnitude earthquake struck the Indonesian island of Sumatra killing more than 220,000 people including 26 Australians.

Indonesia and Thailand are marking 20 years since a tsunami caused the death of hundreds of thousands of people in one of the worst natural disasters in modern history.