"When there is an earthquake and a tsunami, you are in panic, you cannot be expected to think. This is why the emergency drill must be ingrained and be second nature. This has to start from an early age," Ahmadi said as quoted by UN News.

Tsunami-hit nations began commemorating the victims, about 220,000 people, who perished on Dec 26, 2004, after a 9.3-magnitude earthquake off Indonesia's western tip generated a series of massive waves that devastated coastlines from Indonesia and Thailand to Sri Lanka and Somalia.