About 600 people in Indonesia's Aceh Province, which was devastated by a massive earthquake and tsunami in 2004, participated in a ceremony Monday to commemorate the second anniversary of a similar catastrophe that ravaged the Tohoku region in 2011.

Schoolchildren, representatives of society and nongovernmental organizations, government officials and others participated in the "Solidarity for Japan" ceremony, which was organized by the Indonesia-Japan Friendship Forum at a schoolhouse in Peukan Bada, a village near the provincial capital, Banda Aceh.

"The disaster, which is now being commemorated by the Acehnese people, has shown that Acehnese and Japanese people are brothers and sisters and we will always be together to develop Aceh and Japan," Yuji Hamada, Japanese consul general in Medan, said at the ceremony.