Perspective: 20 years on, lessons learned and unlearned from 2004 tsunami

The first inkling that things were really bad in Banda Aceh, Indonesia, was there was no news from Banda Aceh.

The second was the priority request for body bags.

It was Dec 28, 2004, two days after an undersea quake, measuring 9.1 (revised from initial reports of 6.4) on the Richter scale, occurred 160 kilometres off the western coast of northern Sumatra, where Banda Aceh is located. The 7.58 am (local time) quake had generated a tsunami with waves up to 30 metres high, devastating coastal settlements on the rim of the Indian Ocean.

I was at the Subang airport that afternoon, awaiting departure with the first Malaysian Emergency Response Team to Banda Aceh to aid in disaster relief, help with search and rescue efforts and provide aid to survivors. I was part of the team in my capacity as a journalist, working with Bernama TV at the time.

I had read all the news I could about the tsunami but one thing that struck me was that there was little news coming out of Banda Aceh, the most populous city closest to the epicentre of the quake. Much of the news from Aceh then was from Lhokseumawe, a port city located southeast of Banda Aceh, and descriptions of the damage were primarily of flooding and residents fleeing the waves.

In Banda Aceh, buildings were demolished. No wonder there wasn't a lot of news coming out of Aceh - not enough people or infrastructure survived to report it.

So when deputy team leader Vice Admiral (then First Admiral) Datuk Abdul Hadi A. Rashid told me that the Indonesian government had requested body bags mainly, I was shocked and felt uneasy.

Despite arriving in Medan, Indonesia, we did not get clearance to enter Banda Aceh until the next day. We were the first international aid team to arrive. But it was not until the team entered Banda Aceh did the reason for the body bag request become distressingly evident.

A corpse of a man on his back, in full rigor mortis with his arms up as if frozen while trying to catch a beam above him and his legs positioned like he was riding a motorcycle, lay on the divider between the road to the city centre. The fact that he was there at all while cars, trucks, motorcycles and people passed him by without missing a beat, was horrifying but then we saw another body, then another, then dozens, until I lost count and the bodies blurred into the background noise.

Most were lying on the side of the street, some covered, others not. Some bodies were hanging from poles. A fishing trawler was on what used to be a house, with one wall the only thing left standing.

"We were shocked. The initial impression we got at that time was that many lives were lost, around 5,000," said Wan Md Razali Wan Ismail, director of Selangor Fire and Rescue Department, when met at his office in Shah Alam recently. He was in charge of the firefighters on the first Malaysian response team to Banda Aceh, who were members of the Fire and Rescue Department's MUST (Multi-Skill Team).

As we neared the Acheh Province Earthquake and Tsunami Relief Centre, we saw backhoes digging massive holes in the ground with filled body bags lying close, waiting to be buried.

"We're going to need more body bags," I thought to myself.

The 2004 Asian tsunami, which struck exactly 20 years ago today, was one of the most destructive natural disasters in recorded history and the worst in the 21st Century.

In all, 14 countries were affected, including Malaysia, Thailand and Somalia. The final death toll across the region was estimated to be 275,000, including the missing. Indonesia put its final death toll as more than 167,000 and over 37,063 unaccounted for, a fact that does not surprise members of the Malaysian emergency response team.

"I still remember, (bodies under the debris) carried in by the tsunami. It was truly heartbreaking," said Wan Md Razali.

The team members still mourn the astronomical loss of life. They tell me how nothing that came before and after could measure up to the scale of devastation that they witnessed in Aceh. They sometimes wonder how many could have been saved if only they (the rescue team) had gotten there sooner or if the victims had gotten a warning that deadly waves were heading toward them soon after they felt the earth move.

FIFTEEN MINUTES

Experts estimated that the deadly waves hit Banda Aceh approximately 15 minutes after the undersea earthquake. From my conversations with locals at that time, the common thing for them to do during an earthquake was to leave the building they were in and wait in open areas for the tremors to stop. They told me this was to avoid the building collapsing on them.

Which probably was why many were swept away when the waves came. They never knew or were told to take that 15 minutes they had after leaving their buildings to run for higher ground. Many there and elsewhere did not know that receding waters meant an incoming tsunami, either.

In 2004, there was not enough data to help inform governments of an impending tsunami. Prior to that, most people who knew of tsunamis thought they were something that afflicted Japan. Whatever monitoring and warning system in place then was primarily in the Pacific Ocean.

One of the lessons learned from the 2004 tsunami was to put in an international system to monitor seismic activity and oceans. Multiple governments have since developed a global tsunami information system known as Deep-Ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunamis (DART). The system now has 74 buoys in oceans, communicating data and warnings to affected countries immediately if they detect any disturbing movement. Residents would then have a chance to evacuate to higher ground.

On the day of the 2004 tsunami, 81 people in Malaysia lost their lives. They were from Penang, Kedah, Perak and Selangor. Despite Malaysia's proximity to Aceh, Sumatra took much of the brunt of the tsunami and shielded the peninsula, which may be why there is such a discrepancy in tsunami disaster preparedness between the two nations.

"We tend to forget about the high frequency, high magnitude type of disaster in the coastal zones," said Dr Khamarrul Azahari Razak, director of the Disaster Preparedness and Prevention Centre at the Malaysia-Japan International Institute of Technology.

AFTERMATH

He said both nations have been developing coastal areas again, something he is concerned about. But unlike Malaysia, he said buildings on the coast of Sumatra were "built back better" to withstand shocks.

He added Banda Aceh has also prepared vertical building structures, built above flood levels to serve as evacuation centres in case of another tsunami. However, he said there are not enough public buildings at high enough elevations in Malaysia.

"We simply ignore the potential impact of tsunami in the coastal zones ... especially in the east coast of Sabah," he said.

Other than investing in new technology for an early detection and warning system, it is also important to develop non-tech solutions.

One of the stories to emerge from the 2004 tsunami was about the residents of Simeulue Island, situated southwest of Banda Aceh and almost on top of the quake epicentre. All the islanders survived the wave onslaught except for three to five people, thanks to community knowledge of smong (their word for tsunami), a ghostly wave proceeding after an earthquake, which has been handed from one generation to another. They knew to head for the hills once they saw the waters receding.

"They all survived. Unbelievable. These groups of people, (you can see) how the traditional knowledge, indigenous knowledge play a major role (in survival)," said Dr Khamarrul, who is also a committee member at MERCY Malaysia.

When the tsunami struck Aceh, the territory was in the midst of a civil war between Gerakan Aceh Merdeka (GAM) and the Indonesian government. Security issues hampered search and humanitarian relief efforts at times.

But that was not foremost in the thoughts of the Malaysian team's family members.

"My wife and parents worried about my safety because while we were in Aceh, we could feel the aftershocks six or seven times almost daily," said Mohd Hazrumi Halimi, senior officer at the Fire and Rescue station in Kajang, Selangor.

The aftershocks, some as high as 6.9 on the Richter scale, were recorded for weeks in the region after the original earthquake. I admit I was oblivious to the aftershocks most of the time. But I knew of them based on the reactions of others - like when Indonesian Army officers fled the officers' building in the airport in a panic, fearing the original earthquake might have weakened the structure.

Almost a year after the disaster, GAM and Indonesia ratified the Aceh Peace Agreement, where the government allowed semi-autonomous rule.

WOMEN

One glaring blind spot that showed up during the disaster was how most humanitarian aid did not take women's specific needs into account, that is, menstrual hygiene.

There were many reports that not enough disaster aid included sanitary napkins for female survivors. Due to the destruction of houses and shops, there were few menstrual products to be found in Banda Aceh.

Wan Razali and Dr Khamarrul told Bernama that was an eye-opener for them. Authorities and charities now consider victims' daily needs when preparing aid packages for them, not just clothes, food and medicine.

"The lesson learned from the 2004 tsunami... not only (sanitary napkins) but also how they address religious needs. I realise that they (rescue missions now) consider the needs and demands of not only women and kids, but also old people," said Dr Khamarrhul when he visited a UN depot for humanitarian assistance recently.

All this was welcome news. As the only woman on that team in 2004, I could have found myself in desperate straits in Banda Aceh as well. Luckily, I was not there long enough to find out how desperate the situation could really be. The first Malaysian emergency response team flew out of Aceh on Jan 7, 2005.

-- BERNAMA

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