Chennai: People of Akkaraipettai and Keechankuppam in Tamil Nadu's Nagapattinam district Monday observed the seventh anniversary of the fateful day of Dec 26, 2004, when a tsunami swept away thousands of their relatives, neighbours and friends.

The anniversary of the catastrophe was made more poignant by the news of 22 people drowning in a lake near on Sunday afternoon in a boat accident.

On Dec 26, 2004, the tsunami, triggered by an undersea quake off the island of Sumatra, Indonesia, hit the Tamil Nadu coast killing around 8,000 people in Nagapattinam, Cuddalore, Chennai and Kanyakumari.

"The boat accident reminded us of the tsunami and our escape. Today is my seventh birthday," Raghupathy Vaidyanathan, an executive in a software company who survived the wave, told.

Agreeing that the boat accident reminded him of the tsunami, V.Kumaravelu of Akkaraipettai recalled his escape from the clutches of deathe. "I was at a fish landing centre when I became wonder struck watching a wall of sea rising. There were many like me who watched the spectacle. But better sense prevailed and we started running away. I ran like anything and climbed a wall to safety."

Fishermen on the other side of the wall stopped their boats and escaped and those who were near the shore were caught by the wave, added Kumaravelu, an advisor to the Bay of Bengal Fish Worker Union.

He said it took him around one year to recover from the tsunami impact.

"Nearly 50 percent of the 6,065 people who died in Nagapattinam district belonged to Akkaraipettai and Keechankuppam fishing villages," Kumaravelu said.

The giant wave has etched a permanent scar in the hearts of the people who survived it.