Indian Ocean tsunami fifth anniversary

Incredibly, five years have now passed since the Indian Ocean tsunami struck on 26 December 2004. The scale of the devastation was immense and it occurred on a hemispherical scale. 230,000 lives were lost in 11 countries, five million people were affected and $5 billion of damage was caused by one of the largest earthquakes ever recorded. (photo by simminch)

The drama of the day started at 7am local time in Indonesia when an earthquake of between 9.1 and 9.3 magnitude struck the sea between the west coast of Sumatra and the small island of Simeule. The event lasted an unprecedented ten minutes tearing a massive rupture 1,600 kms long. Depending on who’s talking it was either the second or third highest magnitude earthquake of the 20th century. Either way it was immense. The shift of mass and the massive release of energy very slightly altered the Earth's rotation. It caused the sea bed to rise several metres displacing billions of tonnes of sea water in the process.

Because of the north-south 1,600km fissure caused by the quake, the greatest waves went east and west. It took about a half hour for the wall of water to reach nearest landfall on the Sumatran Coast. Northern Aceh was worst hit with waves rising 20 metres high and travelling almost a kilometer inland. Some coastal villages were devastated losing up to 70 percent of their inhabitants. In all 167,000 were killed in Indonesia and another 37,000 listed as missing. An estimated 655,000 people were made homeless.

After another hour, the waves hit southern Thailand and its west coast islands. The waves swept locals and tourists off the beaches. 8,000 people died in Phuket, Phi Phi and elsewhere and a similar number were injured. At the same time the westerly-heading waves slammed 10m high into the east coast of Sri Lanka killing another 35,000 people and it made over a million and a half people homeless. A further 68 people died in Malaysia. By another half hour, it was taking severe casualties in India’s Tamil Nadu and Burma. The waves demolished railways, bridges, telecommunications facilities and harbours. The salt water contaminated large tracts of rich arable land.

And still it kept coming. After another 90 minutes, the tsunami engulfed the low-lying Maldives killing 100 people and displacing another 20,000. And two and half hours later still – some six hours after the original quake – the mammoth waves made landfall in Somalia. 300 people died there with 50,000 made homeless and many more livelihoods lost as 2,500 boats were destroyed. Most of the deaths were caused by asphyxiation from the silt and sand within the “black water” of the tsunami.

A massive worldwide relief operation began almost immediately. The biggest ever peacetime launch of military relief effort arrived in Aceh led by emergency teams from Australia, India, Japan and the US. Apart from immediate medical needs, the biggest threat was secondary death from famine and disease. One of the most important early tasks in Sumatra was to provide purification plants and potable water. This was difficult in a region where the Indonesian army was hauling over a thousand bodies a day from the rivers. Forensic scientists were stretched to the limit to identify the deceased. The process was complicated by sweltering heat, inconsistencies in data collection procedures used in various countries, and jurisdictional challenges. Port, road and transport facilities also needed to be restored.

Undermining the recovery effort was the influx of aid workers and media personnel who consumed scarce resources, making the cost of living soar. There were at least 500 journalists and news crews in the affected zone. And the sensationalism of much of the reporting added to the trauma of the survivors. Aceh did eventually recover and the tsunami had one unintended benefit; it brought an end to the long running war between the Indonesian military and Acehnese separatists.

Dealing with earthquakes will always be one of the perils of living in geologically active Sumatra. As recently as October, over 500 people were killed and thousands trapped under rubble when a 7.6 magnitude quake struck West Sumatra. But it will never forget the events of 26 December, 2004. The psychological trauma of confronting 20 metre waves is too deep. As one 10 year old girl told AFP "Even if I wanted to, I couldn't forget. It's the same for my friends who survived.”

A small step forward for Aceh

Aceh’s independence movement Free Aceh Movement (known as GAM: Gerakan Aceh Merdeka) doesn’t expect to make serious inroads in the region’s first election since they signed a peace deal with the Indonesian government. The accord allows for limited self-rule of Sumatra’s northern most province. GAM do not expect to win seats in this election but are preparing instead for the following elections in 2009 when they will be better set up as a political party.

GAM are the former rebel movement who fought the government for 29 years until the cataclysmic effect of the 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake. The earthquake measured over 9 on the Richter scale and its epicentre was 800km off the west coast of Aceh. Conservative estimates of the death toll in Aceh were 130,000 though some have said as many as 230,000 have died. A further half million Acehnese were made homeless.

Aceh, which occupies the northernmost 12% of Sumatra, is a religiously conservative Islamic society and has had no tourism or any Western presence in recent years due to armed conflict between the military and the separatists. Islam came early to Aceh. The Islamic Kingdom of Peureulak was established around 850 AD in East Aceh. Aceh played an important role in Islamising many parts of Indonesia, including Java. Marco Polo passed through the province of North Aceh on his travels in the 13th century. The Kingdom of Aceh became a significant player also around this time and its influence stretched to southern Thailand. When the Portuguese took Malaka in 1511, they sailed across the strait to Sumatra. They built a fort in Pasai too close to the Achenese for comfort. In 1523, the Acehnese Sultan Ali attacked the Portuguese in Pasai and drove them out. After this defeat, Portugal attempted to conquer Aceh several times, but to no avail.

The Dutch arrived in the following century and had better success in subduing the locals. However the Acehnese continued to resist strongly. In 1824, the Dutch signed the London Treaty in which Britain surrendered the island of Sumatra to the Dutch. However Aceh was allowed to remain independent. Its power was its strategic location at the tip of Sumatra and also its control of the black pepper trade. However their independence was finally killed off by the 1871 Sumatra Treaty in which the British authorised the Dutch to take Aceh to prevent the French from moving in. The Dutch attacked in 1873 and controlled most of the province within the year. Acehnese guerrillas resisted for another 20 years. They even wrested control of the province back for two years in 1892. The Dutch finally realised they could never win militarily so took a different strategy and bribed the regional chieftains to regain control.

However the Dutch never fully conquered the rugged mountainous regions which remained independent right up to the fall of Sumatra to Japan in 1942. The Acehnese welcomed the Japanese as they promised to free them from colonisation. But Japan’s promises were worthless and they were soon despised as much as the Dutch. Several rebellions broke out against their rule. When the war was ended, Indonesia declared its independence and Aceh was broadly in favour of the new country. Aceh gained “special territory” status in 1959. This decree conferred an unusually high degree of autonomy in religious, educational and cultural matters. This allowed Aceh to declare “sharia law” in 2003.

However the autonomy was not enough to satisfy those looking for full independence. On Dec. 4, 1976, Teungku Hasan di Tiro founded the Free Aceh Movement (GAM). Indonesia reacted harshly. The authorities conducted mass arrests of GAM members and kept a lid on their activities until 1989 when the group attacked police and military installations. Jakarta declared Aceh a Military Operation Zone (DOM) which led to massive human rights violations by military and police personnel. Though the DOM status was lifted in 1998 matters did not improve much until the intervention of the tsunami. 12,000 people had died in the 29 year campaign.

The peace deal gave the province control over its affairs except external defence, foreign relations and fiscal policy. It allowed Aceh to retain 70% of its significant natural resources, allows them to field independent candidates in elections for provincial governor and district chiefs and finally to establish local political parties to run in future elections. The 4.3 million population Aceh remains an important province for Indonesia. It is rich in oil and gas. Its future remains cloudy but while GAM holds firm to the agreement, this fiercely independent proto-nation has a chance to establish a lasting peace and a bright future.