Thailand ? Authorities on Wednesday began burying Thailand’s last 110 unidentified victims of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, a little more than two weeks ahead of the second anniversary of the disaster.

Workers in antiseptic white coveralls carried the bodies in aluminum coffins out of the mortuary where they had been kept, then lowered them into concrete vaults in trenches dug at a special new cemetery for the unidentified victims.

The cemetery is near the resort town of Khao Lak in Phang Nga province, which was the area in Thailand most affected by the tsunami. It will be officially inaugurated on Dec. 26 to mark the disaster’s second anniversary.

Nitinai Sornsongkkram, the cemetery manager, said 48 bodies were buried Wednesday, and the rest would be laid to rest today and Friday. Buddhist, Muslim and Christian ceremonies were conducted before the burials.

The tsunami killed more than 5,400 people along Thailand’s Andaman Sea coast and more than 216,000 people in 12 countries.