Mahyuddin and Ema Listyana, in their yard in Banda Aceh, met the day after the tsunami. Photograph: Riska Munawarah/The Guardian

A rise in the number of remarriages and a baby boom in the years since 2004 gave hope to survivors and helped them cope with the tragedy

By Rebecca Ratcliffe in Banda Aceh, Indonesia

It was Mahyuddin’s mother who had pestered him to go out on Sunday morning, 20 years ago. Dozens of relatives were visiting their small coastal village in Indonesia for a wedding party, but a powerful earthquake had struck just before 8am. Buildings in some areas had collapsed. He should go and check on his employer’s office to see if they needed help, his mother said.

As he drove into town, he found chaos and panic. The road was heavy with traffic: cars, motorbikes, trucks, all rushing in the same direction. People were running, shouting that water was coming.

“I had to do something to save myself,” he says. “I decided to leave my motorbike because there wasn’t enough space, and I ran.” He ended up at a junction.

First, a shallow sheet of water spread across the main road. It rose rapidly into a powerful flood, dark in colour and carrying a stream of debris: home furnishings, strips of wood, anything the wave had swallowed in its path. People clambered on to a structure at the centre of the intersection, climbed trees and street posts to survive. Bodies were visible in the flowing water.

Mahyuddin managed to cling to safety. His village, close to the beach and hit by an even greater force, was completely destroyed.

He returned the next day to search for his relatives. It was there that he met Ema Listyana. Her family gave him food, and they searched through dead bodies together.

A year later they married.

The Indian Ocean tsunami, which crashed into Aceh province in Indonesia on Boxing Day 20 years ago, caused devastation unlike any other in recorded history. The waves, which towered as high as 30 metres, killed 227,899 people across 15 countries.

Aceh, on the northern tip of Sumatra Island, was the worst hit. More than 160,000 people died, about 5% of the population. Those who survived lost their homes, businesses and loved ones. Yet out of such a tragedy emerged a touching legacy – eventually people found love and made new beginnings.

Research has shown that the tsunami was followed by a baby boom. Areas that suffered the highest loss of life in the tsunami recorded large increases in fertility. During the second half of the 2000-2009 decade, fertility was nearly half a birth higher per woman compared with pre-tsunami levels.

A later study, on remarriage patterns, found that of the 18% of households that reported the death of a spouse, two-thirds remarried within the next decade. The majority did so within the first three years of the disaster.

Such marriages played a critical role in rebuilding Aceh, says Ida Fitria, a lecturer at the faculty of psychology at UIN Ar-Raniry, a university in Banda Aceh, who co-authored the study. “[It] provided stability for children … it also played a role in personal psychological recovery, emotional support,” she says, adding that such marriages contributed to the repopulation of devastated areas of Aceh.

Muhammad Zaini, an imam in Keude Bieng, officiated about 100 marriages in the year after the tsunami, he says. Most were older couples remarrying after losing a spouse.

He hoped it would help to ease the trauma people had suffered. “Maybe with a new household, a new partner, the spirit of life that was lost would slowly grow back,” he says.

Ema recalls meeting her husband in the aftermath of the tsunami. “My family still had a house, it was not totally broken, so I said let’s go and eat together there.”

Today, in their quiet, cosy living room, the events of 26 December 2004 feel a world away. There are glasses of warm, sweet jasmine tea on the table and pink Hello Kitty cushions perched on the sofa. Beside the TV, there is a stack of trophies, won by Ema and their 17-year-old daughter, Putri Adinda – the healthiest baby award, first place in mothers’ book reading competition and a student quiz.

Mahyuddin lost his mother, father, eight siblings and much of his extended family in the tsunami. Most of Ema’s immediate family, who lived in a village that was less badly hit, survived, but she lost relatives from her cousin’s side. “I felt like he was my family because I lost someone, he also lost someone,” she says.

Fitria says that after 10 years of marriage, most couples are still happy. “We found out a very, very small [proportion] of them had a problem,” she says. People reported remarrying for a range of reasons, with many widows saying they wanted economic stability, and several widowers saying they wanted someone to take care of them as they grew old.

Some men and women said they wanted to have children, or to avoid being the source of gossip. Fitria does not believe people felt pressured to marry, but says there is a firm cultural belief in the importance of marriage in Aceh, a staunchly conservative province which is the only part of Indonesia that implements sharia law.

The wedding ceremonies that took place after the tsunami were far from the spectacular, grand weddings that take place in normal times in Aceh.

“The concept was more focused on the legal aspect,” says Zaini. “For example, we only called two witnesses. If there was a guardian, we immediately married them. So there was no reception. There was nothing.”

Sometimes the ceremonies felt unusual, he says, “because the ones who get married are the wife’s friends and her husband’s friends, and usually not from distant circles. There are some who knew each other’s families before the tsunami, lived in the same village and lived close by,” he recalls. “The point is, marriage aims to help each other.”

Arranged marriages were rare, he adds. “Now we no longer dare to match people, even if they are our own children – afraid that if something happens, we will be the ones to blame.”

Mahyuddin and Ema still live in the same village as Mahyuddin’s family, Deah Glumpang, just two kilometres away from his old home. It was completely destroyed in 2004. Of 1,030 people living in the village, only 100 survived – mostly because they were away at the time the water struck.

Today, the population of Deah Glumpang has grown to at least 1,300. There are homes built in the styles of NGOs that helped 20 years ago, as is the case in many villages.

Memories of the tsunami are imprinted everywhere across Aceh. Curious tourists pay to visit the relic of an old ship that was flung inland by the waves, and which has now been transformed into a museum. Elsewhere, remnants of the disaster are hidden away in nature. The foundations of what was once a mosque is tucked away in the fields, young palm trees springing from its centre. The structure of an old bridge, once part of a village, pokes out above the sea.

Mahyuddin, now 66, and Ema, 42, were marrying for the first time, though she points out her husband was marrying late compared with most people in Aceh. “Before the tsunami he was not willing to get married because he still had his mother, and he wanted to take care of his mother,” she says. “He is a hard-working man, who was supporting his family. He had sisters and brothers but some became widows. He was the breadwinner.”

Mahyuddin was never able to find his relatives’ bodies, though his mother visited him in a dream, he says, and told him in which of the area’s mass graves she was buried. Some families visit all three sites, because they have no idea where their loved ones were taken.

The memories of what happened do still come back, even 20 years on, says Mahyuddin. “Mostly when I’m sitting alone. A flashback comes and tears come from my eyes,” he says. “I try to avoid sitting alone.”

Today they will gather together and pray at the mosque, as is tradition every year.

His wife and daughter are both volunteers who raise awareness of disaster preparedness in the community. He is proud of them both, he says. “At least we have knowledge [now] and we already know how to escape, how to survive.”

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‘You learn to live with the pain’: 20 years after the Boxing Day tsunami, Australian couple remember son Paul

Joe and Evanna Giardina treasure memories of the affectionate 16-year-old they dubbed the ‘love machine’, who died in the 2004 disaster

At first, there seemed nothing to be afraid of. Joe Giardina, his wife, Evanna, and their 16-year-old son, Paul, were taking in the picture-perfect waters of Patong bay as they ate breakfast in their Phuket beachfront hotel on Boxing Day morning in 2004.

“We were admiring the view and all of a sudden the water disappeared,” says Giardina, 67, speaking from his home in Rosanna, Victoria. The water level had dropped so quickly that fish were floundering on the exposed seabed. But rather than sensing any threat, curious onlookers made their way to the beach. “The locals thought, ‘This is fantastic.’ They were running around picking the fish up.”

Now Giardina knows it’s a sign to flee to higher ground. About 550km to the south-west, a magnitude 9.15 earthquake had struck 30km below the Andaman Sea, triggering what would become the most devastating tsunami in history. Paul was one of 26 Australians among more than 230,000 people whose lives were lost across 14 countries – in some impact zones, the waves reached up to 3o metres above sea level. Twenty years on, Giardina’s memories of the disaster are as vivid as they were in its immediate aftermath.

“It really feels like it was only yesterday,” he says of that initially deceptive morning.

Within about half an hour the sea had returned to its normal level and settled, then it began to swirl, gently stirring up the sand below. Almost simultaneously, the nearby pier started to float away. A small amount of water – no more than 20cm – washed on to the road bordering the restaurant.

“It didn’t look dangerous – we said, ‘We’re going to get wet,’” Giardina remembers. But when a car was washed towards the hotel, he began to run, leading Paul by the hand and then attempting to protect his son by holding him against a pillar inside the hotel.

Seconds later, a waist-high wall of water hit them from behind, throwing them over an internal wall and ripping Giardina’s clothes from his body. Cars and tables slammed into the building as everything in the path of the 800km/h wave was lifted and flung high. Something hit Giardina on the back of the head and he went under, losing hold of Paul. Giardina found himself pushed horizontally against the outer corner of the hotel when a large object – a car, a fridge, he’ll never know – pinned his left arm to the wall.

“I’m trying with my right hand to get out, get around the corner, to push away whatever was holding me. And I just couldn’t get there. I was underwater and I held my breath for as long as I could. The last thing I recall is just opening my mouth and that was it. The lights went off.”

Today, he still finds consolation in the thought that Paul, whose body was found in a makeshift morgue by Joe’s brothers-in-law three days later, might have experienced something similar.

“I can only hope – and it’s terrible – but I can only hope that Paul went through the same experience,” he says. “There was no suffering.”

The Giardinas had weighed up whether to visit Thailand or Bali for Paul’s first overseas trip. Paul had Down’s syndrome and, while physically high-functioning, was unable to care for himself. Phuket seemed a safer option two years after Bali’s terrorist attacks and the family – Paul’s sister, two years his senior, stayed in Australia – chose to celebrate Christmas at Patong’s Seaview hotel, where Paul played ball in the swimming pool and was photographed smiling with Santa. Joe and Evanna called their affectionate son the “love machine”.

“Twice in his short life, he had open heart surgery. The second time, he’d had a valve replaced in his heart, and when he’s woken up from the surgery, what was his first comment? It wasn’t tears and crying and screaming, it was ‘What happened?’ There wouldn’t be too many of us behaving that way,” Joe Giardina says, laughing.

Giardina was found inside the hotel, lying prone and headfirst down a flight of steps on the third storey. His position saved his life: water drained out of his body. Initially deemed unlikely to survive, he was eventually taken to Bangkok hospital in Phuket, where the pain from his extensive injuries was numbed by the fear that he had lost Paul and Evanna. His wife was found unhurt and later reunited with him – she had ridden the wave to the hotel, grabbed hold of a balcony and miraculously avoided being sucked back out to sea. When Giardina was medevaced to Melbourne, the doctors’ first job was to flush the sand out of his lungs.

“The one thing that it has taught me is how quickly it can all come to an end. You appreciate every day when you go through something like that,” he says, describing the speed at which the morning went from one of tropical calm to earth-shattering calamity.

He and Evanna are grateful to have found Paul’s body among Thailand’s 5,400 victims, “because if we hadn’t, I know that there would be a sense of ‘He could be out there still’. And where do you start? We would have been walking the streets looking for him. And that would have been …” He pauses. “How do you cope with that?”

It’s not accidental that when visitors to the Indian Ocean Tsunami Memorial take in the wave-shaped sculpture on the shore of Lake Burley Griffin in Canberra, they are also facing the water. Giardina instigated the memorial and requested that its aspect include water. Its unveiling in December 2015 was the first time Joe and Evanna had met all 25 of the other Australian victims’ families, after a 10-year process involving three governments. It’s given them a place where they can remember Paul, and this 26 December they plan to be there again, with their son in spirit.

But part of Paul will always remain in Phuket. Joe and Evanna returned to Patong in October 2005 and again on the first anniversary of the disaster, and Joe has visited Thailand many times since, partly so that the tsunami does not dictate how he lives.

“It’s part of the healing. I feel like part of Paul is there. If I didn’t go back, the tsunami would win. It’s taken my son’s life, and now we’re not going to go to the beach any more because of the tsunami? I didn’t want that either. It’s a rare event, but when it happens, it causes damage, and we’ve just got to accept it.”

Now he can speak about the tsunami without crying – but it is a work in progress.

“As humans, we learn to cope with tragedies. You don’t forget the pain, but you learn to live with the pain. We had 16 beautiful years with Paul, but it’s the journey of life. Life is what it is and you’ve just got to accept it. And we’re grateful we were able to spend 16 years with him.”

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‘You learn to live with the pain’: 20 years after the Boxing Day tsunami, Australian couple remember son Paul

Joe and Evanna Giardina treasure memories of the affectionate 16-year-old they dubbed the ‘love machine’, who died in the 2004 disaster

“It really feels like it was only yesterday,” he says of that initially deceptive morning.

Today, he still finds consolation in the thought that Paul, whose body was found in a makeshift morgue by Joe’s brothers-in-law three days later, might have experienced something similar.

“I can only hope – and it’s terrible – but I can only hope that Paul went through the same experience,” he says. “There was no suffering.”

Now he can speak about the tsunami without crying – but it is a work in progress.

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Syrian forces suffer 14 fatalities in countryside clashes

Transitional administration said 10 police members also wounded by ‘remnants’ of Assad regime in Tartous

Fourteen security personnel from Syria’s new authorities and three armed men were killed in clashes in Tartous province when forces sought to arrest an officer linked to the notorious Sednaya prison, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The Observatory said the clash broke out in Tartous, a stronghold of ousted president, Bashar al-Assad’s Alawite minority, and was sparked by the attempted arrest of the former Sednaya prison official.

Syria’s new interior minister confirmed the fatalities in a message on Telegram, and said that 10 police officers were also wounded by what he called “remnants” of the Assad government. The minister vowed to punish anyone who dared “to undermine Syria’s security or endanger the lives of its citizens”.

The deadly incident comes as demonstrations and an overnight curfew elsewhere marked the most widespread unrest since Bashar al-Assad’s removal more than two weeks ago.

The demonstrations occurred around the same time that an undated video was circulated on social media that showed a fire inside an Alawite shrine in the city of Aleppo.

The interior ministry said on its official Telegram account the video dated back to the rebel offensive on Aleppo in late November and the violence was carried out by unknown groups, adding that whoever was circulating the video now appeared to be seeking to incite sectarian unrest.

In the city of Homs, Syrian police imposed an overnight curfew, state media reported, after unrest there linked to demonstrations that residents were said were led by members of the minority Alawite and Shi’ite Muslim religious minorities.

One demonstrator was killed and five others wounded in Homs “after security forces … opened fire to disperse” the crowd, Agence France-Presse reported, saying the protests were sparked by the video of the Alawite shrine.

Some residents told Reuters the demonstrations were linked to pressure and violence in recent days aimed at members of the Alawite minority, a sect long seen as loyal to Assad, who was toppled by Sunni Islamist rebels on 8 December.

Spokespersons for Syria’s new ruling administration led by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group, a former al-Qaida affiliate, did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the curfew.

State media said the curfew was being imposed for one night, from 6pm local time (1500 GMT) until 8am on Thursday morning.

The Observatory also reported thousands-strong demonstrations in the coastal cities of Tartous and Latakia, also an Alawite stronghold, as well as other areas, including Assad’s home town of Qardaha.

The protests are the largest by the Alawites since Assad’s fall earlier this month, and come a day after hundreds of Syrians protested in the capital Damascus against the torching of a Christmas tree.

The country’s new leaders have repeatedly vowed to protect minority religious groups, who fear the former rebels now in control could seek to impose a conservative form of Islamist government.

The ministry also said some members of the former regime had attacked interior ministry forces in Syria’s coastal area on Wednesday, leaving a number of dead and wounded.

Meanwhile, Syria’s new authorities torched a large stockpile of drugs on Wednesday, according to two security officials, including one million pills of captagon whose industrial-scale production flourished under the deposed leader.

Captagon is a banned amphetamine-like stimulant that became Syria’s largest export during the country’s civil war since 2011.

Since toppling Assad, Syria’s new authorities have said massive quantities of captagon have been found in former government sites around the country, including security branches.

With Agence France-Presse and Reuters

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Officials report 29 survivors and 38 killed as plane crashes in Kazakhstan

Aircraft carrying 62 passengers and five crew was en route from Baku to Grozny in Chechnya

Twenty-nine people have survived after a passenger plane operated by Azerbaijan Airlines burst into flames as it crashed near the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan after veering hundreds of miles off its planned route.

The flight was carrying 62 passengers and five crew members with 38 killed in the crash, according to Kazakhstan’s deputy prime minister, Kanat Bozumbayev.

Kazakh authorities said the survivors, believed to include two children, were being treated in a nearby hospital. Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry said some were in critical condition.

The plane was en route from Azerbaijan’s capital, Baku, to the Russian city of Grozny in Chechnya. A preliminary assessment suggested that both pilots had died in the crash, Russian news agency Interfax reported.

Unverified video of the crash appeared to show the plane bursting into flames as it hit the ground and thick, black plumes of smoke rising. Bloodied and bruised passengers could be seen stumbling from a piece of the fuselage that had remained intact.

More than 50 rescuers rushed to the scene, managing to extinguish a fire at the crash site. Kazakh officials later said more than 150 emergency workers were at the scene, while the health ministry said a flight carrying specialist doctors was being sent from Astana, the capital, to treat the injured.

The plane had crashed hundreds of miles off its scheduled route on the opposite shore of the Caspian Sea, after what Russia’s aviation watchdog said was an emergency that may have been caused by a bird strike.

Officials did not explain why the plane had crossed the sea, but Reuters noted that the crash occurred shortly after drone strikes hit southern Russia. Drone activity has shut airports in the area in the past and the nearest Russian airport on the plane’s flight path was closed on Wednesday morning, Reuters added.

Kazakhstan’s main transport prosecutor, Timur Suleimenov, told a briefing in Astana that the plane’s black box, which contains flight data to help determine the cause of a crash, had been found, Interfax reported.

Russian news agencies said the plane had been flying from Baku to Grozny in Chechnya, but had been rerouted because of fog in Grozny.

Azerbaijan Airlines, the country’s flag carrier, said the Embraer 190 had made an emergency landing about 2 miles (3km) from Aktau, an oil and gas hub on the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea.

“Today is a tragic day for AZAL,” the airline said on social media. “We extend our deepest condolences with profound sorrow to the families and loved ones of the passengers and crew members who lost their lives in the crash of the Embraer 190 aircraft near the city of Aktau.”

It said those onboard, according to preliminary information, included 37 Azerbaijani citizens, 16 Russian citizens, six Kazakh citizens, and three Kyrgyz citizens.

The airline said it had set up a hotline for family members of those on the flight, adding that, in contrast to reports from the scene, there were no children among the passengers.

Hours after the crash, Azerbaijan’s prosecutor general’s Office said it had opened a criminal investigation.

Authorities in Kazakhstan also said a government commission had been set up to investigate what had happened, with members of the commission to fly to the site and ensure that families of those on the flight were getting help. Kazakhstan would cooperate with Azerbaijan on the investigation, the government said.

Mobile phone footage circulating online appeared to show the aircraft making a steep descent before smashing into the ground.

Other footage showed part of its fuselage ripped away from the wings and the rest of the aircraft, lying upside down in the grass. The footage corresponded to the plane’s colours and its registration number.

There was speculation in Russian media that the plane could have been shot down by Russian air defences, which mistook it for a Ukrainian drone.

The Fighterbomber Telegram channel, believed to be run by Capt Ilya Tumanov of the Russian army, released a clip showing what appeared to be holes, which some suggested resembled the kind of damage caused by shelling or an explosion with shrapnel.

Fighterbomber said it was unlikely that the holes were caused by a bird strike.

Flight-tracking data from FlightRadar24.com showed the aircraft making what appeared to be a figure-eight as it neared the airport in Aktau, its altitude moving up and down substantially over the last minutes of the flight.

In a separate post FlightRadar24 said online that the aircraft had faced “strong GPS jamming” which “made the aircraft transmit bad ADS-B data”, referring to the information that allows flight-tracking websites to follow planes in flight. Russia has been blamed in the past for jamming GPS transmissions in the wider region.

Following news of the crash, Ilham Aliyev, the president of Azerbaijan, cut short a visit to Russia where he had been due to attend an informal summit of leaders of the Commonwealth of Independent States, a grouping of former Soviet nations, his office said in a statement.

Aliyev later signed a decree declaring 26 December to be a day of mourning in Azerbaijan. “It is with deep sadness that I express my condolences to the families of the victims and wish a speedy recovery to those injured,” he wrote on social media.

The Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, had spoken to Aliyev after the crash.

“Unfortunately, Azerbaijan’s President Aliyev was forced to leave St Petersburg [where he had a summit]. Putin has already called him and expressed his condolences in connection with the crash of the Azerbaijani plane in Aktau,” said Peskov.

“We deeply sympathise with those who lost their relatives and friends in this plane crash and wish a speedy recovery to all those who managed to survive.”

Azerbaijan’s first lady, Mehriban Aliyeva, who is also the country’s vice-president, said she was “deeply saddened by the news of the tragic loss of lives in the plane crash near Aktau”.

“I extend my heartfelt condolences to the families and loved ones of the victims. Wishing them strength and patience! I also wish a speedy recovery to the injured,” she said on Instagram.

Ramzan Kadyrov, the Kremlin-backed leader of Chechnya, expressed his condolences in a statement and said those being treated in hospital were in an extremely serious condition and that he and others would pray for their rapid recovery.

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52nd over: Australia 171-2 (Labuschagne 40, Smith 9) It feels like Australia have weathered the brief storm that followed Khawaja’s unexpected dismissal. Jadeja, who is bowling accurately but with little help from the pitch, is milked for three singles.

Teen tearaway Sam Konstas rewrites red ball cricket recipe in fearless Boxing Day debut

Teen opener lights up MCG scoring a fearless strokeplay on debut
Boxing Day Test: live updates from Australia vs India at the MCG

The first attempt by Sam Konstas at a ramp shot did not go well. In the windy heat of the MCG on Boxing Day, a swing and a miss was met with a wry grin from Jasprit Bumrah. At the non-striker’s end, Usman Khawaja – 38 a week ago – cracked a smile.

When Konstas failed to connect on a second try minutes later, the writing was on the wall. In a critical moment of a Test series that will define this generation of Australian players, selectors had taken a risk. Konstas had just turned 19, and had played just 11 first class matches. The stakes could not get higher, the spotlight no brighter.

Yes, running in was the best bowler in the world, but those early overs seemed to prove the New South Welshman was out of his depth. The T20 tactics were cute, but this was the Border-Gavaskar, poised at 1-1. Virat Kohli shook his head with a smirk and a beard flecked with grey.

But sometimes old people don’t know what they’re talking about. What followed was one of the most searing chapters in Australian sporting history. All the pressures of the cricketing world were compressed onto the light green square in the middle of this storied ground. Surrounded by more than 90,000 fans, and tens of millions on television, there was no escape. Then: bang, the ensuing explosion a mushroom cloud, re-writing the recipe of red ball cricket.

By the time the opener walked from the field, lbw for 60 from Ravindra Jadeja, he had hit Bumrah out of the attack. The Indian spearhead finished his first spell with a barely believable none for 38 from six overs, conceding at more than a run a ball.

Konstas had sparred with the Indians’ spiritual lead Kohli, a shoulder-to-shoulder that will be looked at by the match referee. The Australian may have backed away against Bumrah to launch him over the slip cordon, but he stood his ground as he stared down Kohli or, in another flashpoint, when Mohammed Siraj gave him words.

More than anything, Konstas had belied expectation. On debut, against Bumrah, in the first session on Boxing Day, it should be not be possible to play the way Konstas did. He charged down the pitch to Siraj short of a length, cut a middle stump-bound yorker for four, and produced more ramps than Arisa Trew’s backyard.

And all that after the best bowler in the world started in imperious form. Once, twice, three times and four, Bumrah beat the outside edge of Australia’s rookie opener. And that was just the first over.

At that stage, the Bharat Army’s flags were waving wildly, their three bays – plus the tens of thousands of Indian fans that filled the ground – enlivening the atmosphere of one of cricket’s great occasions. But as the temperature rose, their enthusiasm was tempered. Australia survived the first five overs scoring barely a run. For the next five, they flowed at more than a run a ball.

Bharat Army organiser, Rakesh Patel, had arrived at midnight in Melbourne, his flights booked long before Konstas’ 19th birthday in October. “Before the first drinks break we should have taken a few wickets, the ball was moving round,” he rued, before Konstas interrupted him with a six as the roaring MCG stood in disbelief. “At his age, on debut, that takes some balls. Fair play to him.”

The six soon became a four, one of several boundary reviews that punctuated the morning. Yet this was a morning where details mattered less than the overall impression. The match still hangs in the balance, the series on a knife-edge. But the blazing, bewildering spectacle of that Sam Konstas innings won’t be forgotten.

He had started the day on the outer, the new kid. At the edge of the loose Australian huddle, he looked around at the grand cauldron, hands swaying nervously. Captain Pat Cummins walked over and put his arm around him.

Konstas may have looked like a boy, but when he took a blow to the groin from Siraj – clocked at 142km/h – there was conclusive proof he was a man. Australians had mostly heard the reports of his feats at state level, caught a grab or two on the news in the lead-up, but this was the first real moment to become acquainted.

To say it was a strong first impression would be an understatement. The daring strokeplay, easy-going nature and agitated top lip – pursed and raised in the corner on the bowler’s approach – offer a glimpse at the person the coming years will fully reveal.

By lunchtime he had earned his place on cricket’s biggest stage. He signed autographs and offered some selfies to a group of young fans . Within seconds the crush was on, an eager flood desperate to get close to Australia’s newest sporting hero.

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Virat Kohli facing sanction after Sam Konstas fireworks rattle India in Boxing Day Test

Kohli likely to face match referee after heated clash with teen debutant
Boxing Day Test: live updates from Australia vs India at the MCG

The spirit of Christmas has done nothing to improve Virat Kohli’s temper.

Days after the Indian superstar took exception to local media when he arrived in Melbourne, Kohli had an on-field flashpoint with Australian debutant Sam Konstas at the start of the Boxing Day Test.

Former Australian captain Ricky Ponting had no doubt Kohli had initiated the contact, with the Indian veteran and the Australian teenager bumping shoulders after the 10th over.

“Look at the way Virat walks. Virat walked one whole pitch over to his right and instigated that confrontation – no doubt in my mind whatsoever,” Ponting said on the Seven Network.

“I have no doubt that the umpires and the referee will have a good look at that.”

Konstas was clearly riling the tourists in the midst of his astonishing Test debut. Moments before he and Kohli bumped shoulders, paceman Mohammed Siraj had given the teenager a mouthful.

Immediately after the contact, Konstas turned in surprise and Kohli reacted, as if to suggest it was the Australian’s fault. Fellow opener Usman Khawaja, an amused spectator to Konstas’s batting fireworks, stepped in and put an arm around Kohli as he played peacemaker.

Konstas reacted to the incident in the best-possible way, belting the first ball of Jasprit Bumrah’s next over for four on the way to making 60.

The 19-year-old showed nerves of steel on debut by attacking Bumrah – the world’s No 1 ranked bowler who took 21 wickets during the first three Tests to repeatedly destroy Australia’s top order.

Bumrah failed to take a wicket during the first session, as Australia went to lunch at 1-112 with Usman Khawaja (38) and Marnus Labuschagne (12) unbeaten.

Konstas was eventually lbw for 60 from 65 balls, 30 minutes before lunch to star spinner Ravindra Jadeja, but not before putting together an innings that will go down in Australian cricket folklore.

“(Konstas) has definitely gotten up their nose a little bit,” Ponting said. “Yes, he’s flustered them. Yes, he’s got up their nose. Yes, there is some frustration out there.”

Kohli had a bad start to his visit to Melbourne for the Boxing Day Test, taking local TV reporters to task when they filmed members of his family at the airport.

Other than his unbeaten 100 in the first Test, Kohli has not scored more than 11.

With the Border-Gavaskar series delicately poised at one-all, India need a big innings at the MCG from their take-no-prisoners star.

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Ukraine war briefing: Biden slams Russia’s ‘outrageous’ Christmas Day assault on Ukraine

President reaffirms US weapons support to Kyiv after Russian attacks on energy infrastructure, which Zelenskyy condemned as ‘inhuman’. What we know on day 1,037

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Joe Biden has asked the US defence department to continue its surge of weapons deliveries to Ukraine, describing Russia’s Christmas Day attack against some of Ukraine’s cities and its energy infrastructure as “outrageous”. “The purpose of this outrageous attack was to cut off the Ukrainian people’s access to heat and electricity during winter and to jeopardise the safety of its grid,” Biden said. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Washington has committed $175bn in aid for Ukraine.
Christmas morning in Ukraine was overshadowed by a massive Russian aerial attack using cruise missiles to target energy infrastructure across the country, which Volodymyr Zelenskyy condemned as “inhuman”. “Today, Putin deliberately chose Christmas to attack. What could be more inhuman? More than 70 missiles, including ballistic missiles, and more than a hundred attack drones,” the Ukrainian president said on Telegram.
The attack left half a million people in Kharkiv region without heating, in temperatures just a few degrees Celsius above zero, while there were blackouts in the capital, Kyiv, and elsewhere. “Russian evil will not break Ukraine and will not distort Christmas,” Zelenskyy said.
Ukraine’s air defences downed 59 of 78 Russian missiles and 54 of 102 drones launched overnight and on Wednesday morning, the Ukrainian military said.
British prime minister Keir Starmer has also condemned the Russian attack launched on Ukraine’s energy grid, which killed one person. “I condemn this ongoing assault on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure,” Starmer said. “I pay tribute to the resilience of the Ukrainian people, and the leadership of President Zelenskyy, in the face of further drone and missile attacks from Putin’s bloody and brutal war machine with no respite even at Christmas.”

Nato member Romania said it had not detected any Russian missile passing through its airspace to target Ukraine, as claimed by Kyiv. “The Romanian military authorities have been informed by the Ukrainian military authorities that, at around 7:30 am, a missile of the Russian Federation forces, which would have impacted in the Chernivtsi region of Ukraine, would have flown through the airspace of the Republic of Moldova and, for about two minutes, also through the airspace of Romania,” the defence ministry said.
A Russian cargo ship that sank on Tuesday in the Mediterranean Sea was the target of an “act of terrorism”, according to the vessel’s owner. The Ursa Major sank while it was sailing through international waters between Spain and Algeria, leaving two crew members missing. Its owner, Oboronlogistika – a company affiliated with the Russian defence ministry – described the incident as an “act of terrorism”, without specifying who might be responsible. The Ukrainian navy spokesperson Dmytro Pletenchuk said Russia faced “systemic problems” in maintaining its fleet but gave no indication that Kyiv was involved in the incident.
Falling debris from a Ukrainian drone that was shot down caused an explosion and a fatal fire in a shopping centre in the city of Vladikavkaz in Russia’s North Ossetia region, the local governor said on Wednesday. Sergei Menyailo said on Telegram that air defence systems had shot down the drone. One woman was reported to have been killed inside the shopping centre.
Russia’s foreign ministry said Australia had been in contact about the possible capture by the Russian army of an Australian citizen fighting with Ukrainian forces. Oscar Jenkins was reportedly captured by Russian soldiers while fighting alongside Ukrainian forces in the Donbas region. Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova confirmed Australian diplomats had been in contact about the possible capture.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy held a call with the Japanese prime minister, Shigeru Ishiba, where he thanked Japan’s government for a decision to transfer an additional $3bn secured from frozen Russian assets. The Ukrainian leader also thanked Japan for the total $12bn in humanitarian and financial aid provided to Ukraine, according to a readout of the Wednesday call.

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Baby girl freezes to death in Gaza while Israel and Hamas argue over ceasefire

Three-week-old Sila is the third baby to die from the cold in Gaza’s tent camps in recent days, according to doctors

A baby girl froze to death overnight in Gaza, while Israel and Hamas accused each other of complicating ceasefire efforts that could wind down the 14-month war.

The three-week old baby was the third to die from the cold in Gaza’s tent camps in recent days, doctors said.

The deaths underscore the squalid conditions there, with hundreds of thousands of Palestinians crammed into often ramshackle tents after fleeing Israeli offensives.

Israel’s bombardment and ground invasion of Gaza has killed more than 45,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to Gaza’s health ministry, which does not distinguish between fighters and civilians in its count.

The offensive has caused widespread destruction and displaced about 90% of Gaza’s 2.3 million people, often multiple times.

Hundreds of thousands are packed into tent camps along the coast as the cold, wet winter sets in. Aid groups have struggled to deliver food and supplies and say there are shortages of blankets, warm clothing and firewood.

Israel has increased the amount of aid it allows into the territory, reaching an average of 130 trucks a day so far this month, up from about 70 a day in October and November.

Still, the amount remains well below than previous months and the United Nations says it is unable to distribute more than half the aid because Israeli forces deny permission to move within Gaza or because of rampant lawlessness and theft from trucks.

The father of three-week-old Sila, Mahmoud al-Faseeh, wrapped her in a blanket to try to keep her warm in their tent in the Muwasi area outside the town of Khan Younis, but it was not enough, he told the Associated Press.

He said the tent was not sealed from the wind and the ground was cold, as temperatures on Tuesday night dropped to 9C (48F.) Muwasi is a desolate area of dunes and farmland on Gaza’s Mediterranean coast.

“It was very cold overnight and as adults we couldn’t even take it. We couldn’t stay warm,” he said. Sila woke up crying three times overnight and in the morning they found her unresponsive, her body stiff.

“She was like wood,” said al-Faseeh. They rushed her to a field hospital where doctors tried to revive her, but her lungs had already deteriorated. Images of Sila taken by the AP showed the little girl with purple lips, her pale skin blotchy.

Ahmed al-Farra, director of the children’s ward at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, confirmed that the baby died of hypothermia. He said two other babies – one three days old, the other a month old – had been brought to the hospital over the previous 48 hours after dying of hypothermia.

Meanwhile, hopes for a ceasefire looked complicated on Wednesday, with Israel and the militant Hamas group that runs Gaza trading accusations of delaying an agreement. In recent weeks, the two sides appeared to be inching toward a deal that would bring home dozens of hostages held by the militants in Gaza, but differences have emerged.

Although Israel and Hamas have expressed optimism that progress was being made toward a deal, sticking points remain over the exchange of hostages for Palestinian prisoners and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, people involved in the talks say.

On Wednesday, Hamas accused Israel of introducing new conditions related to the withdrawal from Gaza, the prisoners and the return of displaced people, which it said was delaying the deal.

Israel’s government accused Hamas of reneging on understandings that have already been reached.” Still, both sides said discussions are ongoing.

Israel’s negotiating team, which includes members from its intelligence agencies and the military, returned from Qatar on Tuesday evening for internal consultations, following a week of what it called “significant negotiations”.

During its 7 October 2023, attack on southern Israel, Hamas and other groups took about 250 people hostages and brought them to Gaza. A previous truce in November 2023 freed more than 100 hostages, while others have been rescued or their remains have been recovered over the past year.

Israel says about 100 hostages remain in Gaza – at least a third whom it believes were killed during the 7 October attack or died in captivity.

Sporadic talks have taken place for a year, but in recent weeks there has been a renewed push to reach a deal.

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Russian scientists criticise cleanup efforts after oil spill in Black Sea

Experts decry lack of required equipment to clean up about 4,300 tonnes of oil after two tankers hit by storm in the Kerch Strait

Russian scientists have criticised the effort to clean up oil that has washed ashore from two oil tankers in the Black Sea, saying it lacks sufficient equipment.

On 15 December, two Russian oil tankers, the Volgoneft-212 and the Volgoneft-239 were hit by a storm in the Kerch Strait, with one sinking and the other running aground.

The strait separates southern Russia from the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea, which it annexed in 2014.

The ships were carrying 9,200 tonnes of fuel oil, about 40% of which may have spilled into the sea, according to Russian authorities.

President Vladimir Putin last week called it an “ecological disaster”.

Thousands of volunteers were mobilised to remove oil-sogged sand from nearby beaches. But scientists say the volunteers do not have the necessary equipment.

“There are no bulldozers there, no trucks. Practically no heavy machinery,” said Viktor Danilov-Danilyan at a news conference.

Danilov-Danilyan is the scientific head of the Water Problems Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences and served as Russia’s environment minister in the 1990s.

The volunteers have only “shovels and useless plastic bags that rip apart”, he said.

“While the bags wait to finally be collected, storms arrive and they end up back in the sea. It’s unthinkable!”

Public criticism of the authorities is rare in Russia.

Up to 200,000 tonnes of sand may have been contaminated with oil, Russia’s minister of natural resources said on Monday.

Nearly 30,000 tonnes have already been collected, said Krasnodar region governor Veniamin Kondratyev on Wednesday.

Sergei Ostakh, a professor at the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, said the oil could soon reach shores in Crimea.

“No one should have illusions it will stay clean,” he said, calling for quick action.

The oil spills may have killed 21 dolphins, the Delfa dolphin rescue centre said, although additional tests were needed to confirm the cause of death.

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