Tsunami Noni depicts a woman lying in a boat in a chrysalis-form

Tsunami Noni was carved by the artist, Rosie Musgrave, shortly after the disaster on Boxing Day 2004.

The artwork has already been on display at locations around the UK, and visitors to the Kent cathedral will be able to see it for one month.

It will then move to a permanent site at Coughton Court, a National Trust property in Warwickshire.

Ms Musgrave, who lives and works on Dartmoor in Devon, said the tsunami, which killed up to 200,000 people, had left her deeply shocked.

She said she had already begun to carve the boat, out of a large slab of Ancaster stone, about two months before the disaster.

I knew that I would dedicate the piece to those who were drowned Rosie Musgrave

"The boat was to symbolise the journey between life and death and I had completed the outside just before Christmas.

"I was at that time undecided how to continue with the carving, and whether I would hollow the boat out so that it became empty," she recalled.

But Ms Musgrave said as soon as news of the tsunami emerged, she knew what she needed to do, and started to carve a figure inside the boat.

"The woman came very quickly almost as if she was waiting in the stone.

"I knew that I would dedicate the piece to those who were drowned."

Tsunami Noni took her about three months to complete, working almost entirely by hand with hammers, chisels, rasps and abrasives.