Abdul Rahem, a fisherman from Lam Awe, Aceh, recounts his harrowing experience during the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami. He lost his parents and three siblings in the disaster, which claimed hundreds of thousands of lives in Aceh. Despite the tragedy, Abdul Rahem highlights the improved warning systems and evacuation plans in place today, offering a glimmer of hope.
Abdul Rahem, who survived the 2004 tsunami but lost his parents and three siblings. His fishing village of Lam Awe in Ujung Pancu, Aceh , now has a warning system and evacuation plan.
Before and after shots of an area affected by the tsunami in Aceh province on 6 January 2005 and 16 November 2024. When the 2004 tsunami struck, there was no warning system in place in the Indian Ocean. Over the past two decades, huge efforts have been made to develop ways to monitor tsunami risks, share information across borders and relay warnings as rapidly as possible.From left: Susanti, 46; Agus Salim, 49; and Daivina Salim, 22, on the motorbike that took them to safety.
Salim had worked for a foreign shipping agency, and so was one of the few people locally who recognised what was happening. “I still remember I was screaming at people around me, but they were still calm, they weren’t panicking yet. I was driving my motorcycle and screaming, ‘the water from the sea will rise’,” says Salim.
Education programmes have to be consistent, he adds. While local government and NGOs initiated many disaster preparedness programmes in local schools in the years after the tsunami,A girl looks at a model of the Tsunami museum in Banda Aceh, which opened in 2009. Photograph: Riska Munawarah/the Guardianack in Jakarta’s early-warning centre, staff sit in rows observing data that flashes across giant screens at the front of their monitoring room.
Tsunami Aceh 2004 Disaster Survivor
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