Lives Forever Changed: Remembering the 2004 earthquake and tsunami

December 2024 marks 20 years since a devastating humanitarian catastrophe shocked and united the world.

On December 26, 2004, an earthquake rumbled beneath the Indian Ocean, creating enormous tsunami waves that barrelled into coastal villages in the surrounding countries and made impact as far away as Africa’s eastern coast.

An estimated 230,000 people were killed across 14 countries and the extent of the damage to homes, infrastructure and livelihoods was unlike anything seen in living memory.

The disaster changed the lives of survivors and responders forever and would go on to shape the way humanitarian organisations responded to major emergencies.

Here, we tell the story of that dark day in December and share Islamic Relief’s role in supporting individuals, families and communities in Indonesia’s Aceh province – the worst affected area – over the last 2 decades.

The world over, Sundays are often a time to relax and prepare for the week ahead.

In Banda Aceh, the regional capital of Indonesia’s Aceh province, children lazed in bed or read the Qur’an after prayers while their mothers and grandmothers headed to the market.

Young people packed for beach trips, while some early birds were already enjoying a dip in the Indian Ocean – warm even in late December.

It was a Sunday like any other, until it wasn’t.

Just before 8am local time, a powerful magnitude 9.3 earthquake struck off the coast of Aceh, causing the ground to shake violently for almost 10 minutes.

The force of the quake shocked and terrified people in the region and far beyond, but few could conceive of the danger that still awaited them.

Banda Aceh looked like it had been hit by a nuclear weapon. All of the buildings were destroyed, even the trees had been pulled out of the earth by the water

Professor Ede Surya Darmawan

Chair of the Board of Trustees, Islamic Relief Indonesia and early responder to the disaster

Aftershocks would rock Aceh for months after the earthquake, but locals didn’t know that yet.

For swimmers, fishermen and others at the coast, there was a more pressing issue in the quake’s immediate aftermath – Why was the water disappearing?

As the tide pulled back from the coast, children and fishermen ran with buckets and nets to collect fish that had been suddenly beached by the receding water. Meanwhile, in the city and villages, families and neighbours began checking on one another after the earthquake.

In less than half an hour, the lives of everyone in Aceh would be changed forever.

I thought that day was the end of the world

“I was getting ready and cooking in the morning when the earthquake happened. After it stopped, I went outside with my husband and infant child. People said the sea water was rising and coming to the land. We ran towards the mountain, but before we reached it, the wave rolled over us.

“After that, my only child disappeared, and my husband and I were separated for 10 days. I was sure my husband was alive because I had seen him climbing a coconut tree, but my husband didn’t know if I was still alive because I’d been carried away by the wave.

“I thought that day was the end of the world. My child was gone, my husband was gone. I had only underwear on as the water had pulled the clothes off my body.

“Eventually, someone told me that my husband was on a mountain, and I met him there. We had nothing to eat, we just drank coconut water and ate guava or anything we could find.”

Yusinar is a tailor and tsunami survivor who also teaches girls how to make clothes. After the disaster, Islamic Relief gave her 3 sewing machines so she could restart her business. Later, Yusinar became the trainer in an Islamic Relief programme to help improve survivors’ livelihoods by teaching sewing skills.

At the coast, the receding water returned with terrifying force as a towering black wave, pulling people and boats down into its swirling waters and throwing them back up again in a continuous churn.

Eyewitnesses hopped onto scooters and motorbikes, desperate to escape the oncoming torrent, and warn others further inland.

But most of their warnings were in vain. As those who had seen the wave screamed, “The sea is coming to the land! The sea is coming to the land!”, they were met with confusion and amusement… How could the sea be coming to the land?

It might be difficult to imagine now, but in 2004, tsunamis were little-known outside of scientific circles or Japan, which had experienced several throughout its history. For many around the world, their first encounter with the word ‘tsunami’ was in hearing about this disaster.

Which meant that most people in Aceh had no idea what a tsunami was or how to protect themselves from one when it began rushing into their towns and villages.

Our truck floated and became like a boat

“My friends and I were planning to go to the beach on the day of the disaster. We were heading there when the earthquake happened, then, maybe 30 minutes later, the main road became very crowded, and we asked our friend to check what was happening.

“He came back and told us that people were running from the coast, saying the water was coming from the ocean. We didn’t know what he meant, so we just laughed. We were about 7km from the coast.

“About 5-10 minutes later, we saw a really big wave. In the beginning, we didn’t even realise it was a wave because the colour was very black and there was a lot of stuff inside it. Eventually, we realised it was a wave, and we tried to run. Some of my friends ran and some tried to get on motorbikes.

“Then, we saw a police truck and my friends and I tried to get on. The main road was already jammed, and water was approaching us from in front of and behind the truck, but, Alhamdulillah, the truck floated and became like a boat.

“A few seconds later, we passed a house and jumped onto the roof to wait for the water to go down.”

Candra Kirana is a tsunami survivor and the Deputy CEO and Head of Operations at Islamic Relief Indonesia.

Read Candra’s blog about how far Indonesia’s humanitarian sector has come since 2004 here.

The first wave was followed by another and combined, they swept entire villages off the map, pulling trees out of the earth by their roots and collecting debris that posed an additional hazard to anyone who got sucked into the water. The waves travelled as fast as 500mph, leaving no opportunity for escape.

Several large ‘booms’ were heard as the waves surged inland, but Aceh had been an active conflict zone for almost 30 years, with an armed group fighting the Indonesian government, so residents assumed the noise was from bombing.

My strongest memory from that time was thinking, ‘Is this the apocalypse? Has the apocalypse really come?’

Subhan

English teacher and tsunami survivor

As the waves arrived in the city of Banda Aceh, the water reached the second floor of homes and completely submerged the many buildings built on only one level.

Residents scrambled onto roofs and up trees to escape. As they looked out at their destroyed homes, many wondered if they were witnessing the end of the world.

Those who couldn’t reach higher ground describe being sucked into the wave and thrown around as though in a washing machine. Many drowned or were killed after colliding with debris inside the wave. Others died later, unable to clear the filthy water from their lungs.

Nearly one third of Banda Aceh’s population died in the disaster. But others did survive, grabbing onto large debris or pulled out of the water by other survivors, sometimes several kilometres away from where the wave had picked them up.

As it collected debris, the wave darkened into a fast-moving sludge that carried trees, cars and motorcycles through the streets of the regional capital. Eyewitness footage from the time shows people running to escape the deluge, while a small bus tries to drive across the torrent’s path.

We didn’t know, so we didn’t run

“There was not a single house left in our village, all of them were destroyed. My family had 8 members, now there are only 2 of us.

“We didn’t know that if an earthquake occurred on that scale there could be a tsunami, so we didn’t run after the earthquake. The waves came suddenly, and we couldn’t save ourselves.

“Everybody got into their cars to try to escape, so the roads were jammed but the waves kept moving. Some people died in the cars; others were dragged out of them. Even motorbikes were dragged by the water.

“Tsunami waves are not like ordinary waves, it’s like water in a blender. All the houses were completely destroyed, cars were squeezed. The tsunami was very powerful, no one could fight it. Even people who were good at swimming died in the tsunami.”

Nazarudin is a tsunami survivor, imam and former civil servant in Kaju Indah village, Aceh. He is one of many people in the village whose homes were rebuilt by Islamic Relief following the disaster.

People who had found safety on roofs in the city, or mountains in the rural areas, stayed there for hours and days until the water levels dropped and help began to arrive.

Because of the conflict, there was a large military and police presence in Aceh, but many of these would-be responders had died in the disaster, while their trucks and helicopters had been crushed by the force of the water.

The conflict had left Aceh isolated from the rest of Indonesia, as well as the world, with tight restrictions on who could travel in and out of the region meaning international non-governmental organisations (INGOs) had little-to-no presence in an area now in desperate need of support.

In the first hours and days after the disaster, many survivors who were able travelled to Medan, the region’s second-largest city, where shelters began to pop up and hospitals rushed to cope with the influx of wounded people and rapidly depleting supplies of medicine.

Others wandered the streets of their unrecognisable city, looking for the spot where their homes had been and hoping that their families were still alive and looking for them too.

I was rolled by the waves, like in a washing machine

“Our house was 5-7 kilometres from the shore, but my wife could see the wave in the distance, and it was very, very high.

“I picked my child up and we went to the second floor of our house where there was a balcony. I was going to look around and come up with a plan, but my house was suddenly surrounded by water. It collapsed and my family was scattered.

“I remember that it was like I was being rolled by the waves, like in a washing machine. I was flipped with my head back, like a somersault, and sometimes I would touch the ground and sometimes I was thrown up. It was like being flipped up and down.

“In those moments, I saw so many things happening – small children who were lost, small children who entered the whirlpool… Why did I survive? I survived because I tried to hold onto a sofa that happened to pass by me. I immediately grabbed it, and I survived. The sofa stopped at a coconut tree, and I thought that if I didn’t grab the tree, I would be taken out to sea.”

Budi Permana is a tsunami survivor and the logistics assistant at Islamic Relief Indonesia’s Aceh office.

From inside Aceh, the scale of the disaster was almost too large to immediately fathom. But in the hours and days after the tsunami hit, scientists and journalists communicated its terrible impact to audiences around the world.

Nearly a third of Banda Aceh’s population had died, with the same number left homeless, and some 800,000 people across the region losing their livelihoods. The damage was estimated to amount to some $1.2 billion.

Equipment at the time variously recorded the earthquake as being 9.1, 9.2 and 9.3 magnitude – enormous by any standard and frighteningly close to matching the most powerful earthquake ever recorded, which struck the Chilean city of Valdivia in 1960.

The quake released energy equivalent to 23,000 Hiroshima-type atomic bombs, causing the ocean floor to rise by up to 40 metres in places and shifting the Earth’s axis by an inch. An earthquake that strong shakes the ground violently, destabilising and collapsing buildings, and creating the conditions to trigger a tsunami.

How strong was the earthquake compared to others?

In 2004, the devastating power of the wave created a tsunami of equal ferocity. At their highest, the waves striking Aceh reached up to 51 metres. This is roughly equivalent to a 5-storey building – of which there were none in Aceh – or to 32 adult Indonesian men of average height standing on each other’s shoulders.

The waves overwhelmed everything in their path not only because of their height, but also because of the speed at which they travelled. At their fastest, the tsunami waves were moving as quickly as 500 miles per hour – just 50mph shy of the average speed of a commercial airplane in flight.

The death and destruction caused by the disaster stretched far beyond Aceh and Indonesia, with 14 countries recording fatalities and more still experiencing damage.

The most-heavily impacted countries were the South Asian nations that circled the Indian Ocean, including Indonesia, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Myanmar, India, Bangladesh, Thailand and Malaysia. Among these, Islamic Relief responded in the 3 worst-affected: Indonesia, Sri Lanka and India.

Several other countries that lay much further from the epicentre of the quake, and where Islamic Relief works today, were also impacted. These include Somalia, Kenya, South Africa and Yemen.

Part of what made the disaster in 2004, and subsequent response, so global in nature was also the fact that large numbers of tourists were in the area at that time and also impacted. More than 2,000 Europeans died in the disaster, which happened just one day after Christmas when many families had travelled abroad to celebrate.

As meteorologists and satellites around the world registered the enormous earthquake, and news began to trickle out of the affected countries, humanitarian organisations rushed to prepare a response.

Islamic Relief began working in Indonesia in 2000 with projects such as Ramadan and qurbani food distributions and providing school supplies to children.

Like other INGOs, we had no presence in Aceh prior to the disaster and struggled to get information from the ground the following day because our local contacts had all been impacted.

We sent one member the Islamic Relief Indonesia team to Banda Aceh to assess the situation the day after the disaster.

It was immediately clear that a huge amount of support was needed.

We sent one member the Islamic Relief Indonesia team to Banda Aceh to assess the situation the day after the disaster. It was immediately clear that a huge amount of support was needed.

In the first week following the disaster, Islamic Relief provided food, water and other essential items to survivors. Soon, we were distributing well over 30,000 litres of drinking water a day to displaced people.

At the same time, more staff from Indonesia and UK headquarters arrived to support relief efforts. We were almost starting from scratch and needed an office, a bank account and many more staff if we were to begin meeting the enormous needs of survivors.

If you accept this job, you’ll have to leave for Aceh tomorrow. Are you ready or not?

“Almost everyone in Aceh was affected, so we had to recruit people from all over Indonesia, ensuring they had the skills we needed and were ready to travel to the disaster zone.

“The last question of every interview was: ‘If you accept this job today, tomorrow morning you will have to leave for Aceh. Are you ready or not?’.

“If they said yes, they were sent, then we’d check in 2 weeks later. If they were coping, they could stay. If not, they had to go home.”

Professor Ede Surya Darmawan is the Chair of Islamic Relief Indonesia’s Board of Trustees. He was one of the first Islamic Relief staff members to arrive in Aceh.

Read Ede’s blog about Islamic Relief’s early response to the disaster here.

The logistical challenges of meeting the needs of affected communities were immense – Where do you find supplies when warehouses have been destroyed?

How do you reach remote communities when bridges have been washed away and roads flooded? These were all issues that had to be solved at pace.

Islamic Relief worked with the military to redistribute their supplies of tents to survivors, and with other large INGOs to continue providing clean water to displaced people.

It was the first time we’d responded to a tsunami and no one at Islamic Relief had seen a disaster on that scale before.

Everyone was afraid each tremor would cause another tsunami

“This disaster was unlike anything I’d experienced before. I’d been involved in responding to a couple of crises, but nothing to that extent.

“I perhaps didn’t anticipate what it would be like because I didn’t have any concept of what a tsunami could do.

“It was traumatic, and I think it remained traumatic for quite a while because we were constantly getting aftershocks in the area, and everyone was fearful that every tremor might cause another tsunami. We were constantly on edge for a number of weeks because of the aftershocks.”

Haroon Kash is the Head of Programme Funding and Partnerships at Islamic Relief. He spent 5 weeks in early 2005 responding to the disaster in Aceh.

Read Haroon’s blog about his experience responding to the disaster here.

Effectively isolated before the disaster, Aceh was suddenly awash with doctors, nurses, humanitarians and volunteers from all over the world, who collaborated to share their knowledge and skills to best support a community in desperate need.

National efforts to help the affected areas were also intense, with many colleagues who would go on to join and lead Islamic Relief Indonesia becoming involved in humanitarian work for the first time as a result of the disaster.

As well as launching operations in Aceh, Islamic Relief also began working in Sri Lanka for the first time following the disaster. After Indonesia, Sri Lanka was the most heavily affected country, with some 35,000 people losing their lives.

The tsunami wave hit Sri Lanka’s southeastern coast an hour and a half after first battering Aceh, destroying tens of thousands of wooden homes and boats – the source of livelihood for the fishing community.

As in Aceh, few people knew about tsunamis, so, while the earthquake had been felt in Sri Lanka, most locals and tourists did not know that more danger lay ahead.

Also like Aceh, Sri Lanka was in the grip of conflict when the disaster struck. The then more than 20-year-long civil war had left the country even more ill-prepared to respond to a disaster on the scale of the tsunami.

Islamic Relief arrived in Sri Lanka shortly after the disaster and began distributing food and tents to displaced survivors.

We donated buses to help the government transport survivors to shelters and supported the decimated local health sector to reach remote patients by providing ambulances and mobile health clinics, as well as medical and hygiene supplies.

Our immunisation drive reached 3,500 children, helping to curtail the potential spread of disease from the crowded conditions of displacement camps.

As time passed, we built new homes and schools in Ampara, Sri Lanka’s worst-hit area, and launched a cash-for-work programme to help boost survivors’ incomes.

We supported children by introducing the Orphan Sponsorship Programme – which provided a regular stipend to help care for orphaned children – and empowering orphanages and boarding schools to generate funds through farming.

Though the tsunami destroyed the land and many lives, survivors helped and empowered each other. From the moment Islamic Relief established our office until now, our humanitarian work continues to support all communities in need.

M. Ibrahim Sabri

Country representative, Islamic Relief Sri Lanka

Back at Islamic Relief’s headquarters in Birmingham, UK, our staff worked tirelessly to process the unprecedented number of donations we were receiving in response to our $19 million appeal – the largest in Islamic Relief’s history at the time.

In the early 2000s, many donations still arrived as cheques and Islamic Relief UK’s fundraising department was quickly awash with envelopes.

If a typical week brought 80 cheques into the office, during the tsunami appeal, we were receiving over 1,000, with managers and directors opening envelopes so their teams could get process the donation and get the money to colleagues on the ground as quickly as possible.

Less than one month after the tsunami, survivors gathered at Banda Aceh’s Grand Mosque to mark Eid al-Adha. In the face of so much loss, the mood was sombre, but life was beginning to return to the city and the mosque had become a symbol of hope to many survivors.

The Masjid Raya Baiturrahman, along with several others in Aceh, survived the disaster largely unscathed and became an even more important space for communities afterwards.

It sheltered survivors, housed makeshift classrooms and bore the weight of countless missing posters put up by people still desperately searching for their loved ones.

All the houses were destroyed, but the mosques survived

“All the survivors came out of the barracks where we stayed to go to our village mosque to perform the Eid al-Adha prayer together. Because of the disaster, some people were afraid to leave home, but everyone came then.

“Our mosque fortunately survived, it was only slightly damaged in one corner and other mosques could also still be used. It’s a miracle when you think about it, all the houses were destroyed, but the mosques – even ours which is near the sea – survived.”

Nazarudin, tsunami survivor and imam in Kaju Indah village, Aceh

Islamic Relief staff were among the worshippers at Masjid Raya Baiturrahman that Eid, passing precious moments of calm amid a response that was long from over.

As the weeks turned into months, Islamic Relief’s response in Aceh evolved from helping to meet basic survival needs, to empowering affected communities to take the first steps towards rebuilding their lives.

Wider clear-up efforts had begun, with elephants brought in to help clear roads too congested for heavy machinery to access. Islamic Relief began running cash-for-work programmes.

These projects aimed not only to clear land where new houses could be built, but also to support people who’d lost their livelihoods to earn a small income and support their mental wellbeing through activity.

By April 2005, we had cleared land and identified suitable plots, beginning to build over 1,000 new homes for survivors, many of which are still lived in today. We worked to repair damaged schools and held health and hygiene training sessions to prevent the outbreak of disease as well as setting up water and sanitation facilities.

We supported fishermen to start working again by providing boats and equipment and empowered small business owners by replacing their stock and tools lost in the disaster.

Islamic Relief also ran vocational training in carpentry and electrical skills to help people get back into work that would support the community’s recovery.

Tens of thousands of children lost their parents in the disaster, with some 30,000 becoming orphans in Indonesia alone – the vast majority in Aceh.

Islamic Relief began enrolling children in our Orphan Sponsorship Programme in March 2005, providing orphaned children and their families with much needed long-term support.

Each month, families received a stipend to help cover costs related to schooling and healthcare. While our dedicated field officers visited children in Aceh regularly as they grew up, monitoring their welfare and supporting families’ needs, where possible.

Enrolled families were also included in other Islamic Relief programmes such as Ramadan and qurbani food distributions.

This work continues today, with 1,711 children enrolled on the Orphaned Sponsorship Programme across Indonesia and 1,182 in Sri Lanka as of late 2024.

The children orphaned by the tsunami have grown into adults, and graduates of the programme in Aceh have gone on to pursuits including university study, teaching, administration and small business ownership.

Nur became orphaned in the 2004 disaster at the age of 10. After completing her education, she opened a tailoring workshop with her friend.

“Alhamdulillah, the support from Islamic Relief was very beneficial to me as I could complete my degree.

“I am proud. Although we couldn’t ask our parents for support, we can now stand on our own 2 feet with this business.”

Rahmad was 9 years old when he lost both his parents and older brother in the disaster.

With the support of the Islamic Relief and his uncle, Rahmad returned to school and was able to continue his education.

He now works as a physical education teacher on a civil servant’s contract, meaning his job is secured for life.

At 6 years old, Muhajir’s life was turned upside down by the disaster, which killed his widowed mother and one of his brothers.

Support from Islamic Relief empowered him to continue his studies and, in 2024, he completed a master’s degree in data science at the University of Birmingham, UK.

In September 2024, Muhajir kindly visited Islamic Relief’s headquarters in Birmingham to meet staff and share his experiences of the disaster and growing up with the Orphan Sponsorship Programme.

Muhajir’s presentation was a moving opportunity for Islamic Relief staff to meet someone supported by the programme’s work and see the life-changing power of our donors’ generosity firsthand.

Lampisang Puskesmas is a healthcare centre in a suburb of Banda Aceh. Its 72, mostly female, staff tend to the needs of patients at the centre as well as travelling to surrounding villages to serve community members in the comfort of their own homes.

The centre, built by Islamic Relief, opened in 2006 and provides a range of services from vaccinations and dentistry to speciality care for young children and the elderly. The paediatric staff are particularly occupied with combating stunting, sometimes referred to as ‘stunted growth’, levels of which are relatively high in Aceh.

Marlina has been working at the centre since 2008, becoming its director in 2022. At the time of the tsunami, she was in the former Indonesian capital, Jakarta, with her parents, celebrating and relaxing after completing her university studies.

After hearing about the disaster, she called home, but it was a week before she could make contact with anyone or hear the news that her entire extended family had died. Like so many survivors of this disaster, Marlina would never find the bodies of her loved ones.

On her return to Aceh, with the local healthcare centre destroyed, Marlina began working as a village midwife, carrying her medicine box from tent to tent to treat displaced pregnant women and mothers, and to vaccinate children against diseases likely to spread in camps.

Marlina recalls diarrhoea, fever and itching being common complaints, as well as wounds people sustained from debris when caught up in the tsunami’s waves. Months later, it became clear that the tsunami had also led to large numbers of lung conditions. But not all health impacts were physical.

“The main health issue at that time was with mental health,” Marlina says. “The community was very depressed at that time. They felt as if they hadn’t just experienced a tsunami, but the end of the world. They stopped caring about their own health. People didn’t care about their appearance anymore. Even us healthcare workers didn’t have decent clothes; we just wore simple clothes and flip flops when we went out to serve the community.”

As INGOs began arriving in Aceh, Marlina and other local healthcare workers were assigned to accompany them to treat patients, but she recalls that many of the healthcare workers were themselves traumatised and depressed and had to put aside their own feelings to support the community.

INGOs trained local healthcare workers in how to assist someone who is drowning, as well as in treating wounds and asthma, while extensive counselling and play sessions supported children’s mental recovery.

Lampisang Puskesmas was built, giving patients a safe and clean place to come for treatment. Over time, Marlina saw the health of the community recover from the effects of the disaster, particularly when people began moving out of tents and into temporary, and later, permanent homes.

“At that time, we really needed this healthcare centre so we could work to serve the community, to restore mothers’ and children’s mental health – the mental health of the entire community – and to treat the diseases caused by the tsunami.

“Before we had this building, we went out in flip flops to treat patients, but suddenly we had a place to really serve the community, and people who needed our services could come directly here.”

Lampisang Puskesmas is one of 27 health clinics built by Islamic Relief in Aceh following the disaster. We also built 1 hospital and trained more than 300 health professionals, including midwives, to empower them to better serve their communities.

Islamic Relief’s Orphan Sponsorship Programme supports children to cover education-related costs, but before child survivors could buy new schoolbooks and bags, they needed somewhere to learn.

In the weeks following the disaster, makeshift schools sprang up in mosques and tents. With so many children killed, class sizes had greatly reduced, and teachers faced the challenge of organising learning for a single class made up of a mix of elementary, middle and high school-aged children.

Out of our 300 students, there were only 18 left

Subhan

English teacher and tsunami survivor

Putting their own trauma aside, teachers worked to raise the spirits of their students, knowing how important this generation would be if Aceh were to have any hope of recovering from the disaster. It took a long time for children to get excited about learning again, but slowly, step by step, they were able to busy themselves with their studies once more.

To support children and their teachers returning to school, Islamic Relief repaired several damaged school buildings and constructed 23 new schools.

We also provided books, furniture and equipment to 30 schools and nurseries, and were among several INGOs that delivered training to teachers on what to do in the event of future disasters.

20 years later, the laughter, shrieks and yawns of children still fill the corridors of the schools Islamic Relief built after the disaster.

None of the roughly 300 students attending each school are old enough to remember the tsunami, but they learn about it in class and can confidently explain what to do in the event of an emergency thanks to regular drills and evacuation protocols put in place by their schools following the disaster.

Parents also know that if a disaster happens during schooltime, staff will guide their children to designated assembly points, where their families can later find them.

All of these measures are a direct result of lessons learned from the 2004 disaster and are essential as 73% of Indonesia’s schools are located in disaster-prone areas.

As long as we were alive, we had to do our best for our students

“After the disaster, we were in a temporary school, a 3×4 metre room. We listed the students who had survived the tsunami. Not many were left, only a few. In the room we had children from all grades learning together, and continued to teach so the children could stay focused on studying.

“I tried to make sure the children could get to school. I’d pick them up at their houses, I’d pick them up at the barracks. I’d go to their houses and ask, ‘Why aren’t you going to school?’

“When we moved to this new building, I thought about how I could make sure the children would come to school, because most of the children lived up in the mountains. I ended up buying a pick-up truck on credit so I could pick up the children every morning and bring them to school… What’s the point of having teachers if there are no students?

“I felt we had to continue to strive and contribute, even though our condition was not perfect. As long as we were still alive and healthy, we had to continue to do our best for others and for our students.”

Marwan is the headmaster of Aceh’s MIN31 elementary school and has been teaching for 25 years. MIN 31 was among the schools Islamic Relief rebuilt following the disaster.

Teachers had lost their families too, but we knew we needed to protect and motivate our students

“After the tsunami happened, myself and several of the other teachers came to see the school, but the only thing left was the foundations. We gathered more teachers and the headmaster and went to the barracks, where people displaced by the disaster were sheltering, to announce that our school would continue lessons at the Grand Mosque.

“We were very sad at that time because out of our 300 students, there were only 18 left. We combined our school with 3 others and continued to look for information about our missing students.

“The role of teachers was incredible at that time – these teachers were also affected by the tsunami, all had families who were lost and died in the tsunami. However, because we are teachers, we knew we also had to protect our students. Although the teaching and learning we did was not that serious at the time, we focused on encouraging the students to keep their spirits up.

“There were students who were caught in the tsunami water and survived the disaster. I tried to motivate these students. All teachers did the same.”

Subhan has been an English teacher in Aceh for 21 years. The disaster destroyed his junior high school, MTSN 3, which Islamic Relief later rebuilt.

While the disaster completely devastated Aceh and its people, many survivors acknowledge a silver lining to the tragedy.

In January 2005, peace talks between the Indonesian government and the separatist Free Aceh Movement began. The memorandum of understanding signed that August effectively ended a conflict that had raged since 1976 and resulted in the deaths of between 10,000 and 30,000 people.

Aceh was still shaken by the shock of the disaster, but a new hope had begun to spread throughout the province.

The tsunami also brought us peace. So, we could recover not only from the tsunami, but also from the conflict of more than 30 years

Dr Rina Suryani Oktari

Health and disaster management expert
Former health officer, Islamic Relief Indonesia

Then-Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (pictured with Islamic Relief staff Haroun Atallah and Khaled Khalifa) visits a mass grave of tsunami victims in Banda Aceh in 2005. Islamic Relief constructed the memorial site, with support from the United Nations Development Programme, to give relatives a place to mourn their loved ones. The site, which in 2024 has the appearance of a beautiful and peaceful park, is the final resting place of more than 14,000 people.

In 2007, Indonesia introduced a disaster management law, outlining a new process for preparing for and responding to disasters, and establishing the National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB) to coordinate these disaster risk reduction (DRR) and emergency response efforts.

In a country like Indonesia, which sits on the Pacific Ring of Fire and is vulnerable to a wide range of natural disasters and extreme weather events, the law was revolutionary and led to a professionalisation and standardisation of emergency response, heavily influenced by lessons learned during the 2004 tsunami

The power of local knowledge

Efforts to ensure the lessons of the disaster are passed onto each new generation have in part been inspired by the incredible story of Simeuele.

Despite being even closer to the epicentre of the earthquake than Banda Aceh, only 7 of the island’s more than 70,000 people lost their lives in the disaster.

This has been attributed to local knowledge known as ‘smong’ which became something of an early warning system in Simeuele following the earthquake.

In 1907 Simeuele was devastated by a major tsunami. Survivors told the story to their descendants in a practice that has continued to the present day.

The story instructs listeners to evacuate to higher ground if they see the tide recede following an earthquake.

In December 2004, this knowledge was quite literally the difference between life and death for the islanders.

Looking at the enormity of the disaster, we thought Aceh would take a long time to rise again. But, exceeding everyone’s expectations, Aceh quickly rose up. What made Aceh rise from its painful and very dark condition was the spirit of the Acehnese people to change and seek a better life… because the world helped Aceh, we did not feel alone

Dr Muslim Yakub

Head of Aceh Social Department and tsunami survivor

As well as coordinating with INGOs, organisations in Indonesia began to focus on building their own capacity to respond to disasters, using local knowledge and expertise to best serve affected communities.

The disaster informed the way Aceh was rebuilt, from more resilient buildings to the city’s wider roads, designed to make evacuations easier. 20 years later, Banda Aceh is a thriving city that bears no resemblance to the scenes of devastation its name conjures in the mind’s of many around the world.

The remaining signs of the tsunami – a ship stuck on the roof of a house and a 2,600-tonne offshore generator dragged inland by the wave – are now tourist attractions.

While the imposing exterior of the Museum Tsunami Aceh belies its delicate retelling of that horrifying day in December 2004. The museum is not only a place to educate and remember, it also functions as an evacuation centre in the event of future emergencies.

We need to keep remembering, not to open old wounds, but to save us later

Budi Permana

Logistics assistant, Islamic Relief Indonesia and tsunami survivor

If a similar disaster happened now, the community knows what to do

“It’s true that we still don’t have a way to detect disasters like the earthquake and tsunami, but, if a similar disaster happened now, insha’Allah, the community will be much better prepared.

“They will know what to do when an earthquake happens, and that it has the potential to cause a tsunami. They know they must evacuate from the seafront and surrounding areas. They know the evacuation routes.”

Wahyudi Sudiro is a Child Welfare and Protection Officer for Islamic Relief Indonesia’s Aceh office. He joined Islamic Relief in 2005, travelling to Aceh to respond to the tsunami, and has remained there ever since.

Islamic Relief’s work with vulnerable communities in Indonesia and Sri Lanka continues today. While many INGOs left the tsunami-affected areas after several years, we remained by the side of the communities, adapting our programming to meet their changing needs.

In Indonesia today, Islamic Relief works across 5 provinces, including Aceh, providing a lifeline to people in the aftermath of disasters, and working with local authorities and communities to better prepare for the next one.

We’re helping communities adapt to the negative effects of climate change, ensuring people’s livelihoods remain stable, as well as supporting children through the Orphan Sponsorship Programme and education programming. In Aceh specifically, we are supporting communities today through shelter projects and orphan sponsorship.

The legacy of Islamic Relief’s response to the tsunami, and the recovery we were able to support thanks to the generosity of our donors, can be seen in the schools and healthcare centres we built that are still serving communities today. It’s in the more than 1,000 homes that have sheltered families for these 20 years, providing a respite at the end of the working day and space to raise and care for children.

It’s visible in the plaques still adorning these homes and, more poignantly, on a sign by one of Banda Aceh’s mass graves, where Islamic Relief constructed a surrounding wall to help create a beautiful and tranquil city park that became the final resting place of more than 14,000 tsunami victims.

Islamic Relief has enormously benefitted the weak and poor in Aceh and beyond

“I’ve known about Islamic Relief since the second week after the tsunami. From then until now, I have never heard anything unpleasant about Islamic Relief.

“What it has done both inside and outside Aceh has provided enormous benefits for marginalised people – for the weak, for the poor – I hope Islamic Relief will continue to do its best to help everyone who needs help.”

Azwir is a tsunami survivor and the chairman of Baitul Mal Aceh, a government zakat body that partners with Islamic Relief to build homes in Aceh.

Responding to the tsunami was the start of Islamic Relief’s work in Sri Lanka, which has now spread to support vulnerable people across 5 provinces.

We support children through the Orphan Sponsorship Programme and education programming providing bags, stationery and shoes for school. We help families break their fast at Ramadan and celebrate Eid al-Fitr with our food distributions.

Our development projects in areas such as water, sanitation and hygiene and livelihoods, also aim to promote harmony among Sri Lanka’s different ethnic and religious groups, which are well represented among our own staff.

We will always be ready to answer the call

“Disasters are everywhere in Indonesia. They’ve happened before and they will happen again in the future – here and around the world.

“Humanitarian action is very important because it saves lives. Islamic Relief will always be on the frontlines of disaster. We will always be ready to answer the call.”

Nanang Subana Dirja is the CEO of Islamic Relief Indonesia. He joined Islamic Relief in 2005 after being inspired by our response to the disaster.

The lessons learned during the years responding to the 2004 disaster continue to inform Islamic Relief’s work and emergency responses 20 years later.

The disaster was unprecedented. Not only in its destructive force, but also in the generosity and unity it inspired in the hearts of donors and organisations around the world which made Islamic Relief’s response possible.

In the 20 years since the tsunami, we have never seen a natural disaster on its scale, and we hope and pray this remains the case. However, disasters – both natural and manmade – continue to claim lives and devastate communities around the world, with climate change making extreme weather events, such as flooding and droughts, more frequent and severe.

Islamic Relief is doing all we can to answer the call for help, wherever and whenever it comes. Our Global Emergencies Fund makes this possible.

Please help Islamic Relief to stand by communities in their moment of greatest need, and throughout their recovery.

Donate to our Global Emergencies Fund today.

Editor's note

This work is the result of hours of interviews with survivors of the disaster and Islamic Relief staff. Most of these took place in Aceh, Indonesia, in August 2024, with others conducted in Birmingham, UK, and remotely throughout 2024. Segments included here have been edited for clarity and brevity.

Thank you to everyone who generously shared their time and memories with us for this project.