People across Asia paused on Saturday, to observe the fifth anniversary of the devastating earthquake and tsunami that killed up to 230,000 people in about a dozen countries. The December 26, 2004 tsunami destroyed entire coastal communities, decimated families and crashed over tourist-filled beaches, sweeping away everyone and everything in its path. Brief memorials were held in mosques throughout the region beside mass graves, and at seaside resorts and communities on the rim of the Indian Ocean. The tsunami was triggered by an undersea earthquake with a magnitude of 9.0 that struck off the coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra. Over the next seven hours, a wall of water reached across the Indian Ocean, devastating coastal areas as far away as East Africa.<br/>