BANDA ACEH, Dec 26 (NNN-ANTARA) – On one Sunday morning, Mawardi was watching cartoons with his two brothers at his house, on Meulaboh Bay in Indonesia’s westernmost province of Aceh, when a 9.3-magnitude earthquake literally shook them from their seats.
His mother and grandmother, who were also inside the house, panicked and rushed his brothers and him out of the house. They received no formal warning alerts about what was going on.
“I heard a really loud noise, like a waterfall. I was terrified after I saw giant waves like I had never seen before,” said Mawardi, who was 13 years old then.
Together, they rushed to escape, but after dashing for about one kilometre, they were slammed to the ground by the huge black wave, and were separated from each other.
Mawardi has never seen his mother, grandmother or brother since then.
Other survivors were trying to rescue him when he was struck by a floating boat. “I felt my body weakened severely. I was so hungry and thirsty. From the boat, I saw bodies and debris everywhere,” he recalled.
Three days later, Mawardi found one of his brothers and his father, who left their house that Saturday, to work in a town which was not impacted by the waves.
“I kept looking for my mother, grandmother and another brother everywhere. I even searched among a pile of dead bodies in the streets, but I couldn’t find them,” said Mawardi who presumed they were killed.
More than 120,000 people were killed in Aceh, by a nearly 30-metre-high tsunami, triggered by a mega-thrust earthquake that struck undersea, off the coast of Sumatra Island, on Dec 26, 2004.
The earthquake was one of the deadliest natural disasters in recorded history. The catastrophe also caused major disruption to living conditions and economies, in countries along the surrounding coasts of the Indian Ocean, including Sri Lanka, India and Thailand.
In the westernmost Indonesian province, mass graves can still be found. In Dec, 2018, as many as 45 body bags were pulled out from the ground, by construction workers on a public housing project in Kajhu Village, in Aceh Besar regency, as they were doing excavating work to build a septic tank.
The bodies were believed to be victims of the 2004 tsunami. At least four of the bodies were identified by the authorities by their identity cards. The workers did not know that part of the land for the housing project was actually a mass grave. Kajhu was one of the worst hit areas by the tsunami. Around 85 percent of the villagers were killed and those who survived the calamity decided to leave the village.
Dadek, who now serves as an assistant to the Aceh governor, is also one of the survivors. He lost five family members and many friends. “I headed a district in Meulaboh regency at the time. At least 10 percent of the population went missing. The total population was about 70,000,” he noted.
Every year, the Aceh administration holds a function commemorating the 2004 earthquake and tsunami. Not only does the event commemorate the people killed in the disaster, but also passes on the lessons to future generations.– NNN-ANTARA