On 26 December 2004 during a Christmas holiday and Boxing Day celebration, several hundreds of Danish people in Thailand and other parts of South and Southeast Asia were among thousands of people killed by the magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami, which resulted in the significant loss of Scandinavian lives. Memorial services were held for those affected by the catastrophic disaster at the Copenhagen Cathedral in January 2005 and on the island resort of Phuket in southern Thailand in April 2005, both of which were attended by Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen on behalf of all Scandinavians.