#tsunamiday2016

The destructive nature of tsunami was clearly illustrated by two large events in the early 21st century: the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami (with more than 225 000 fatalities and almost 10 billion dollars in damage) and the 2011 Tohoku tsunami in Japan (with more than 19 800 fatalities and 210 billion dollars in damage). Such events cause massive casualties, economic losses, and damages to critical infrastructure, but they are also infrequent, with recurrence times typically ranging from hundreds to thousands of years. Therefore, historical records often do not include events as destructive as those we need to be prepared for. As a result, many coastal communities are not always well prepared for such large tsunamis and may underestimate the hazard, as demonstrated in the above mentioned events.

Tsunami hazard models that provide probabilities of infrequent tsunamis are necessary because many regions exposed to tsunamis have little memory of past events. Making assumptions on future tsunami sources based on our best scientific knowledge and modeling the ensuing tsunamis are therefore an initial and essential component of comprehensive disaster risk management strategies that can complement the sparse historical record. Simulations of potential tsunamis and subsequent vulnerability and risk assessments play a key role in the design of risk reduction measures for both the pre- and post-event stages, such as education and raising risk awareness, building requirements, evacuation planning, drills, emergency plans, potential damage analysis, physical mitigation measures, and financial instruments to manage the risks posed by rare, destructive tsunami events.

In the last decade there has been a growing effort to understand tsunami hazard and risk at local, regional, and global scales, with a sequence of increasingly elaborate global tsunami hazard and risk studies, conducted in part through the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) biennial Global Assessment Reports (2009, 2011, 2013, and 2015). Most recent iterations of this work incorporate a fully probabilistic approach and have global coverage for the hazard, while further developments are ongoing (Figure 1, above). The results of the 2015 assessment, both for hazard and physical risk, in terms of economic losses, are openly and freely available to the public at risk.preventionweb.net.

Because of the simplifications necessary when working at the global scale, the current global tsunami-hazard and risk models are not recommended for detailed local-scale planning. However, they can give a first-pass estimate of the global distribution of tsunami hazard, which can help to identify exposed regions where in many cases no hazard information previously existed and hence raise the awareness of communities potentially affected. The global models can also be used to help prioritize sites for local scale assessment, to compare the tsunami hazard and risk with those associated to other types of natural hazards, and to provide input as well as useful cross-checks of more detailed studies.

To further improve the quality and to standardize tsunami hazard and risk models, tsunami scientists affiliated to research and academic organizations around the globe have recently convened around a new and scientifically/administratively ambitious initiative called the Global Tsunami Model (GTM). The GTM overall vision and goals are to collaboratively achieve a thorough understanding of the tsunami hazard and risk, together with the processes that drive them. Data, software and standards developed by GTM can be used to underpin and facilitate national and local-scale tsunami hazard and risk assessments. These goals are closely related to the priorities included in the Sendai Framework of Disaster Risk Reduction about understanding disaster risk.

The recent magnitude 7.1 earthquake and subsequent tsunami warning in northern New Zealand reminds us that tsunamis are unpredictable and can strike any time.

If you live in a tsunami risk zone then you’re probably aware of what to do when a tsunami strikes. But if you’re a traveller or a visitor from somewhere not used to such events, how can you prepare yourself?

Since the devastating Sumatra earthquake and tsunami of December 2004, it has been recognised that there is risk of tsunami along all coastlines.

A tsunami can strike any coast at any time and we can’t predict exactly when or where they will occur.  

Tsunamis are most often caused by undersea earthquakes but they can also be caused by submarine landslides or volcanic eruptions.

A tsunami can move as fast as a jet plane across the open ocean and can smash into land with waves as high as 20 metres.

The water may wash inland for several kilometres in flat lying areas, and can move up streams and rivers, picking up everything in its path.

Waves may continue to strike the shoreline for many hours, and dangerous currents can continue for days following the event.

Although a tsunami can’t be prevented, its impact can be lessened when communities understand the risks, receive timely warnings and know how to respond.

Understanding the level of risk for your area is the first step towards being prepared. If you are travelling, look up the national disaster management centre or emergency response agency for your destination.  

Natural and official warnings

Warning messages about tsunamis can come from several sources.

Natural warnings include feeling a strong earthquake, seeing a sudden rise or fall in sea level, or hearing a loud and unusual noise from the sea. In many cases this means a tsunami could arrive in minutes and it is important to act quickly and not wait for an official warning.

Official warnings are distributed by local authorities such as police, civil defence or local councils. Warning messages are often circulated through media channels including television, radio and the internet.

Tourist areas may also have sirens along some beaches.

What is important to note is that each country, and in many cases each local area, will have a different warning system. So when you travel somewhere new, do not assume it will have a system that is similar to what you are used to from other places you have travelled, or at home.

If you receive an official warning, act quickly and follow the instructions to move to higher ground.  

There are a number of free and subscriber services for tsunami warnings, but don’t rely on SMS or email warning services. During an earthquake or tsunami these services often become overwhelmed and messages don’t get through.

Being prepared

Before you travel, find out what you can about the tsunami risk in the area you are visiting.

Subscribe to official travel advice from your government, if available. Organise comprehensive travel insurance and check that you are covered for natural disasters such as tsunami.

On arrival, perhaps as you check into your hotel, ask your host about how tsunami warnings are disseminated and where the tsunami evacuation routes are.

Find out where the nearest high ground is (at least 20 metres above sea level) and work out how you get there. If there is no high ground nearby, find out if there are established vertical evacuation routes. These are usually tall, concrete-reinforced buildings with at least four storeys.  

During a tsunami

Stay out of the water and away from beaches and waterways. Never go to the shore to watch the tsunami. If you can see it, you are too close to escape.

Use TV, radio or internet to get updates on the situation, but try to keep phone lines clear for use by emergency personnel.

Follow instructions from local officials to move to higher ground or evacuate into a tall building. Evacuate on foot or by bike and drive only if essential. Roads tend to become gridlocked during a tsunami emergency, making it more difficult for the emergency response teams to access the area.

Stay away from at-risk areas until the all clear is given. The first tsunami wave may not be the last or the largest, and the waves may be more than an hour apart.  

After a tsunami

Do not return to the evacuation zones until advised by authorities, even if you can’t see any damage. Be aware that there may be extensive earthquake or flood damage and buildings may not be safe.

Look out for broken power lines and other dangers and stay away from beaches and waterways.

If you are overseas, then as soon as you are able, contact your local embassy, High Commission or consulate in case family and friends are trying to find you. Stay informed through conventional or social media if phone lines are overwhelmed.

We can’t predict or prevent tsunamis, but the good news is that you can improve your chances of staying safe by understanding the risk, being prepared and acting quickly when disaster strikes.

An effective tsunami early warning system is achieved when all persons, especially in vulnerable costal communities are prepared and respond appropriately and in a timely manner upon recognition that a potential destructive tsunami (local or regional) may be approaching.  Understanding what this means, and when and how to act when a tsunami might come, covers actions at the critical last mile in the tsunami warning chain.  Building that awareness needs to happen regularly and continuously in communities as we don’t know when and where the next dangerous tsunami will occur.

What is Awareness and how do we build awareness?

This summary seeks to be representative of how many countries are developing and carrying out awareness-building programmes. There is no one best approach or practice, and beyond some very basic key information that can be conveyed in many ways, there is no one best awareness publication or educational textbook.

Often, the key organizations involved in developing and disseminating these materials are the stakeholders involved in the end-to-end tsunami warning process, namely the Tsunami Warning Center (TWC) and Disaster Management Office (DMO ). In many countries, the DMO serves as the lead agency for public awareness and preparedness, but TWCs, as the organization responsible for the scientific evaluation of the tsunami (and earthquake threat), often work closely or share the responsibility with the DMO.

Awareness and education materials generally include basic topics, such as:

•        Tsunami Science and Hazards 


•         Historical tsunami events and their impacts 


•         Tsunami Warning System -modes of dissemination, timing, and messages 


•         Tsunami Emergency Response System – safety actions such as evacuation carried out, timing, services available 


•         Tsunami Safety Rules (for people, on evacuation, use of structures/infrastructure, in boats and 
harbors, etc)


In developing an awareness and education plan, important strategies include: 


•         Traditional knowledge. This can be a powerful tool in community preparedness. Although it may be the most effective means in a more traditional / rural / remote community, in general, traditional knowledge alone will not be enough to assure an effective response to early warning systems that are developing in countries. Additional information on early warning alerts, and education on response and safe evacuation and return are needed. 


•         Community focus. Each country will have different priority issues related to education and awareness so that in general, education and awareness products should be tailored to the community-specific needs (hazards, geography, demographics, cultural/religious/social, etc). 


•         Multi-faceted approach. To be effective, materials need to answer the questions of the target audience simply and clearly. These can be achieved through a variety of formal and informal education, awareness-building and preparedness activities, or programmes. 


•         Coordination and collaboration. Working together and coordination between the different agencies involved is essential. Involvement and commitment by all stakeholders will help to ensure sustainability. 


•         Sustainability through public policy. A tsunami education and awareness programme that is able to sustain itself over generations can be highly effective, and may be perhaps the only feasible (funded) mitigation for localities where tsunamis are infrequent.

Successful programmes take into account at least the following themes:

•         Culture - Sensitivity to develop understanding and approaches that are built and based on local culture, beliefs, and practices 


•         Locality -Where possible and resources available, use of local context and language effectively to assure clear understanding and good communication 


•         Diversity – Knowledge on the structure of the community and society to take advantage of its strengths. 


Education and preparedness programmes should at least address the following objectives:

•         Increase people’s understanding of why tsunamis happen and its nature. 


•         Raise awareness on the important role of communities in preparedness and mitigation 


•         Build capacity in planning and preparing to minimize the tsunami impact. 


•         Create empowerment and encourage communities to become more self-reliant. 


•         Focus on collective action instead of individual action.

Some formats for education materials are:

Books; Teaching Materials; Booklets leaflets, flyers; News Letters; Comics; Toys & Games; Video, CD / DVD Rom; Posters, Stickers. 


Some methods of educating are (outside classes that are part of school education):

Face-to-face teachings; Training for Trainers; Community Events and Awareness Days; Memorials, Assemblies & Special Meetings; Drills and exercises; Focus events for special needs communities (disabled, elderly, women and children); Youth Group activities. 


Some formats building public awareness are:

Booklets, leaflets, flyers; Posters; Stickers; Special interest stories – survivors, events; Roadside signboards; Public service announcements and Media; Advertisements (such as in telephone books). 


Some methods of conveying information to the public are:

Community Meetings and Workshops; Assemblies & Special Event Meetings; Toys & Games; Drills, Simulations, and Exercises; Publications, Printed and electronic media; Exhibitions; Fairs, booths, and window displays; Museums and videos to Commemorate Disaster 


Over the last five years, mobile and electronic technologies have become a commonplace medium for quickly and widely sharing information. Social media networks, such as Facebook and Twitter, and video sharing through YouTube, are popular and accepted around the world. As such, governments and practitioners should develop ways to communicate through these mechanisms. In this case, vital safety information should be short, concise, and actionable, and additionally visually interesting to hold the public’s attention. 


Every tsunami awareness reminder, however small, with time, is a payment toward saving life when the next tsunami attacks. Building awareness is relatively simple – it starts with an interest by one person, but can groundswell into communities and stretch over coastlines.  There is no right way, no wrong way –- but if we prepare, nobody should die in the next tsunami.  

History reminds us of the recurring danger of tsunamis, and past catastrophes share their lessons to enable us to better mitigate tsunami impacts and the loss of life. People remember, and elders pass down their tsunami safety maxims, stories, and songs through generations, thus embedding basic preparedness (what is a tsunami, how will I know it is coming, and what do I do) from childhood.  Schools add knowledge and rigor on the science of tsunamis, while also building decision-making skills to enable effective emergency response and responsible development planning.

Since 1975, there have been 43 deadly tsunamis, with nearly 70% in the Pacific and its marginal seas. Over history (1610 BC to AD 2016), there have been 1235 confirmed tsunamis, of which 249 have been deadly. 76% occurred in the Pacific Ocean and its marginal seas.  87% of the tsunamis were generated by earthquakes. Tsunamis are blind to politics and borders, wreaking havoc locally and also crossing ocean basins with deadly waves that can reach 40 m high and flood six km inland.  Globally, 90% of the casualties were from local tsunamis that attacked in minutes.

It is for especially local tsunamis that Education, Awareness, and Preparedness for evacuation is the #1 priority.  The earthquake’s shaking is your natural Tsunami Warning sign – heed it and immediately head inland to higher ground because a tsunami might come.  Don’t wait for a Tsunami Warning to be issued, or sirens to sound because it might be too late or never come.

Tsunamis have no seasons and we don't know when the next big one will be, nor where it will occur.  So, we must always be prepared …

The anniversaries of disaster events are like links in a chain of memories that remind us of how precious life is and of our exposure to man-made and natural hazards.

The fifth anniversary of the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami in March this year wass an occasion to remember those who lost their lives in that tragic sequence of events and to raise awareness of the dangers of synchronized failure in our technology-dependent world. It was not a coincidence that the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction decided to formally launch the consultations on a new global agreement for reducing disaster losses on the first anniversary of this disaster and that U.N. member-states should meet in the equivalent of the tsunami’s ground zero — Sendai — three years later, to adopt the outcome.

The events of March 11, 2011, have profoundly shaped the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, forcing the world to look beyond the self-evident threat of natural hazards that is the usual purview of disaster risk management.

The earthquake disrupted the power grid, including the power supply needed to cool the spent fuel, at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. The tsunami then struck the plant, disabling the unprotected backup generators. The reactors suffered a meltdown, displacing 100,000 people and had a major impact on the nuclear power industry both in Japan and around the world.

The earthquake, the tsunami and the nuclear emergency illustrate what a cascading disaster looks like: a multi-sectoral systems collapse combining both natural and man-made hazards in unprecedented fashion.

This and a host of other major disaster events, including a growing number of climate-related disasters and epidemic threats, inspired the architects of the Sendai Framework to extend the brief of disaster risk management to small-scale and large-scale disasters caused by both natural and man-made hazards as well as related environmental, technological and biological hazards and risks.

What does this mean in reality?

Fundamentally it means avoiding the creation of new risk and reducing the existing stock of risk. In the case of a nuclear power plant in a tsunami zone this would mean, as the Japanese government has noted, “adequate consideration of the recurrence of large-scale earthquakes in relation to a safety goal to be attained.” In short, all possible effort needs to be made to tackle underlying risk drivers whatever they might be.

It’s not always easy to be wise after a major disaster event. In most circumstances, if governance arrangements and capacities for risk reduction are strengthened, this prepares the ground for addressing other risk drivers in a coherent and effective fashion.

For instance, five years ago Japan quickly identified the need to “review regulatory and administrative frameworks on nuclear safety” and we have seen the result in action over the past week with the shutdown of a nuclear reactor while safety checks are done.

Accountability for reducing and managing disaster risk is a clear theme running through the Sendai Framework. Disaster risk reduction, if it is to be done well, requires coordination and the full engagement of all state institutions of an executive and legislative nature at national and local levels.

Japan is consistently ranked in the top five most disaster-prone countries in the world. Over the last 100 years, some 200,000 people have lost their lives in calamitous events such as the Great Kanto (1923) and the Great Hanshin (1995) earthquakes. Millions of people have been affected by disasters and economic losses have been enormous.

These events underline why the Sendai Framework has four targets which seek substantial reductions in disaster-related mortality, the numbers of people affected by disasters, economic losses and damage to critical infrastructure including schools, hospitals and public utilities.

The Sendai Framework also promotes increasing the number of countries with national and local disaster-risk reduction strategies; enhanced international cooperation and a substantial increase in the availability of, and access to, multi-hazard early warning systems.

Clearly Japan is already playing an important role in promoting and facilitating the achievement of all these targets. In particular, the tsunami-affected areas are leading the way in building better and demonstrating how important it is to have risk-reduction strategies at the local level, such as the pine forests that are being planted as green breakwaters against future tidal waves, and proving that disaster risk reduction also has many quality of life co-benefits.

Japan is among the most active nations in sharing its disaster risk-reduction experience and expertise with other countries, including many less developed states. The government is also responsible for an important new addition to the international calendar following the U.N. General Assembly decision to recognize Nov. 5 as World Tsunami Awareness Day. As the fifth anniversary also signifies, remembrance and awareness raising are important to banish complacency in disaster-prone parts of the world.

The Sendai Framework’s predecessor, the Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA) was adopted in 2005 just weeks after the Indian Ocean tsunami killed some 227,000 people. Over 120 countries participated in the last HFA reporting cycle (2013-2015) detailing their progress in reducing disaster risk.

This regular voluntary monitoring of implementation of these agreements is evidence that a culture of disaster risk reduction is spreading across the world and explains why many countries are experiencing success in reducing mortality from climate-related disasters, which now account for 90 percent of all disasters linked to natural hazards.

Almost 2 billion people have been affected in major recorded disaster events over the last 10 years, including Hurricane Katrina, Cyclone Nargis, the 2010 Port-au-Prince earthquake, the 2011 floods in Thailand, the Pakistan and Chinese earthquakes, and the current droughts in Africa. Exposure and vulnerability continue to grow in many parts of the world.

What disasters like the Indian Ocean tsunami and the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami have taught us is that assumptions about what creates hazard have to be constantly assessed and revised in line with the pace of social and economic development. In our technology-dependent world, risk is a great equalizer and does not always distinguish between rich and poor.

When I was 10 years old I was on holidays in Thailand with my family. We had been there a week and had just celebrated Christmas with family and friends on the beach the day before it all happened.

It was Boxing Day and I was on the beautiful white sand beach of Mai Cao, in Phuket. It was eight in the morning. I was enjoying a family walk before breakfast along the beach with my dad, Colin, mum, Penny, and seven-year-old sister Holly.

I had a watched a video before I went to Thailand and as soon as I got on the beach I recognized that the sea was not going in and out but was just coming in further and further on the beach. I also noticed there was a white froth on the surface of the sea and those were the two things that I linked back to the video and I just had a gut feeling that something was wrong.

I had watched the video at school. My geography teacher Mr. Karney at Danes Hill School, Oxshatt, Surrey, had put it on. I was in year six. He brought a tray into the class and there was a three-storey house made out of polystyrene and we would shake it and see that it fell down. We had a discussion on earthquakes and the sea, and an earthquake in the sea creates a tsunami. It was two weeks before we went on holiday.

We were walking along the beach and I got more and more paranoid because my mum was not responding and didn’t believe me so I ran back with my sister and dad and spoke to the security guard where my dad said I thought there was going to be a tsunami, a word he was not familiar with. In the meantime my mum had come running back and we were all screaming and that’s when the wall of water came up.

The security guard at that point received a message saying there was a tsunami in Indonesia and it was on its way. When I was on the beach I was getting hysterical and people overheard and then when we got the message from the security guard that there was one on the way that’s when everyone on the beach just ran.

Luckily we ran towards the hotel and we went to the lobby which was on the third floor from which you could see the waves coming in and it was manic, everyone grabbing their kids and going up to their rooms to get their passports. They wanted to leave and all the local staff were pleading with us to stay.

We were worried that there was going to be another tsunami coming. We went to a hotel that wasn’t completed on higher ground and they looked after us for a day and I remember looking at their television and the death toll just kept going up.

We saw people coming in who had lost family. We got people from other parts of Thailand coming in. I remember seeing this girl who had scars all over and she had got caught up in the waves. The beach was wrecked. The pool was wrecked.

In early 2005, we got home and I remember being on the plane and security people came on. They asked who had lost people in the tsunami and many put their hands up. That’s when the full reality of it sank home. These were the people coming back to England, so how much worse was it for local people who had lost so many loved ones. The fact that I remember that Thai Airways flight now obviously means it had a massive impact.

We got home and then it properly hit that we had been through something traumatic. My mum was definitely traumatized. We got home and it was the top story everywhere and it was still in the news. There were journalists on our doorstep. That wasn’t very nice. No one knew the extent of what we had been through.

I had letters coming in seven or eight letters months later from people saying things like how they had named their dog after me. My story appealed because it was one story that was positive out of all the devastation. There was the fact that as a 10-year-old I knew about this particular disaster risk and my mum and dad did not, and I had learned about it at school.

My school friends could not believe I was there. It made the whole story much more interesting. Mr. Karney could not believe it either that something like that could happen so close to when he had taught me the lesson.

When Bill Clinton became the UN Special Envoy for the Tsunami, I was brought over to Washington to meet him. As a volunteer with the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, the big lesson for me from the Indian Ocean Tsunami is how important it is to educate children about natural hazards and disaster risk. Children can pass on what they learn at school to their parents and others in their communities.

I know now that over 60 million children are affected every year mainly by floods, storms and earthquakes so they are valuable eye-witnesses to disasters and should be used as agents of change. Children are creative and will always come up with good ideas about how to reduce risk in their communities if they are engaged.

We also need to make sure that schools are safe from floods and earthquakes. Children and youth successfully lobbied for this at the UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction in March 2015 in Sendai, Japan.

The last world conference was a few weeks after the tsunami and it put the spotlight on all the crazy ways we increase risk by building in the wrong places or using poor quality materials but not enough has been done about making schools safe from disasters. Thousands of schoolchildren have died in earthquakes in the last ten years.

We try to go back to Thailand every Christmas. A hotel my grandparents once stayed in was destroyed in the tsunami. Our one survived. It’s bigger now. We always have a chat with the security guard who is still there on the beach. There are signs now warning about the danger and showing the evacuation route. It’s a day we will always remember.

My name is Rahmadhani, aged 45. Our story starts when my family and I were enjoying the sunshine together on a beautiful Sunday morning in December 2004 in a hilly area of Banda Aceh, Indonesia’s Aceh Province. Everyone was basically enjoying the holiday together. We couldn’t expect a disaster.

At around 8:00 am people started running, screaming, “Water come! Water come!” We had no idea what they  meant. We were completely shocked and started running even though we couldn’t see anything horrible or even water. Many locals rushed to the higher elevation of the hills. From here we could see the water.

Shortly afterwards, two metres of water swamped our house and almost everything we had. From afar we could see something was very wrong with the sea, though at the time we didn’t realize it was a tsunami. After a while people slowly came down from the mountains, then we saw dead bodies and debris everywhere. I will never forget people screaming, crying and running without clear direction.

It was a dreadful situation, and everyone was under so much pressure. Many innocent people like children, women and old people became victims. Rumors spread that entire islands were wiped out. There was no power, no real information and we got so isolated by the mounds of debris and dead bodies. Everything was quiet except for crying. Life suddenly became so empty and frustrating. Due to our house being flooded, I, my family and some others stayed together at a neighbor’s home in the same area. His house building was a little bit higher and safe from the flood.

I and some of my neighbors were encouraged to relocate the dead bodies to safe places to be buried later. Frankly speaking, I had no idea what made me so courageous to deal with the bodies. It was so frightening for me. I was such a coward dealing with that case. But I was quite aware that this was a very difficult and dramatic situation. On one hand, in these desperate circumstances, my family, my wife Neneng and my two sons, six-year-old Naufal and three-year-old Farhan, were also in need of my extra attention for their safety and comfort. On the other hand, I was right in the real challenge of humanity, with the dead bodies extremely in need of my sincere assistance. They were my people and I needed to help them out. It also occurred to me that what I was doing was a part of “karma”. I believe the others would be doing the same locating and assisting my family members who might also be in the tragic situation. However, this had become the most difficult time in our life.

During the ensuing days, sanitation became very bad and contaminated. Everyone was haunted with the image of devastating tsunami. The aftershocks gradually occurred even though they were not as powerful as before. But we were all on alert in case something bad happened again. We could only try to survive and try to depend on one another. We had a little remaining food, but when it was finished we had no more. People were searching for food and there was very high competition – as lots of demand with supply very limited. After the third day, I tried to seek my family members in Banda Aceh, so I borrowed my friend’s motorcycle. On our way, I myself kept thinking and questioning whether or not they were safe. If they were not, where their bodies were. And if they were safe, where to meet them as everyone desperately escaped.

I and my wife and sons clearly saw thousands of tragically dead bodies along the streets on the way to the city. Everywhere was horrible and heartbreaking. They were not prepared for the sight of so many dead bodies. Not to mention the smell. Things that were supposed to be in the sea were in the street. We couldn’t believe it when we saw ships in the roofs of houses and in hotel car parks.

Fortunately after a long time of seeking, we thanked Almighty God, who has supreme might and power over all things, when we found our family members stranded but safe. It was such an emotional, important meeting. Everyone was thinking of their own family members’ safety.

Life was unhealthy and hard, so we decided to leave our home because things were getting unbearable and miserable. So we moved to a friend’s house in Lambaro, approximately 15 kilometres away from our home, for a couple of days, though there it was the same situation. We then went to Medan, in the neighbouring province, to our brother’s house. Even though life in Medan was better, our thoughts and prayers remained in Aceh, our hometown, and those who lost everything or dead during the tragedy.

The unprecedented earthquake, with a magnitude of 9.2, followed by the deadly tsunami, had rocked Aceh. The great loss of life and tremendous destruction were tragic and threw the economy of Aceh into jeopardy with massive devastation of physical capital and human resources. To return to a better condition for many aspects of life in Aceh after the tragedy, a comprehensive reconstruction programme by strongly engaged state and local governments, communities, donor countries and NGOs was prioritized. It was carried out by establishing an implementing agency as known as the Agency for Rehabilitation and Reconstruction (BRR) for Aceh and Nias. The BRR, financially supported by donor countries and international institutions, played a very important and useful role in managing the recovery in Aceh.

The disaster not only resulted in unprecedented global solidarity and sympathy in order to ease the sufferings of impacted communities through large scale humanitarian aid. It also paved the way to end the armed political conflict between the Free Aceh Movement, or GAM, and the Indonesian Forces that had taken a long period and a greater number of casualties since 1976. The disaster proved to be a “blessing in disguise” which transformed the tragedy into an opportunity for the Acehnese to lead a better life in peace.

To sum up, past disaster should not leave things as they were. They should be an important lesson for everyone. As we are now living in areas of shifting tectonic plates — the “Ring of Fire” — which are constantly prone to disaster threats, living in harmony with hazards and better understanding disaster characteristics is essential in minimizing harmful impacts by building communities’ preparedness. Conducting media and school campaigns, dissemination, disaster drills and community discussions are important. Sharing live stories or lessons learned from past disaster experiences among communities, through projects such as TeLL-Net, is also crucial. Always remembering the impacts of  Indian Ocean Tsunami is the key for disaster risk reduction efforts and future community resilience.