Excerpt
KIRA KAY (NewsHour): On a Sunday morning, the villagers of Lampuuk gather for a feast, celebrating the start of the harvest season. But Lampuuk is also celebrating the life that has returned to it, a decade after a wall of water swept the village away.
Misran Yusuf is the village’s imam. He recalls a scene eerily like this one on December 26, 2004.
MISRAN YUSUF (through interpreter): There was a wedding that day. We were preparing food, and, all of a sudden, an earthquake hit. It was so strong, people fell. We had no idea that the seawater would rise. We had never heard of a tsunami.
KIRA KAY: The quake that hit offshore was a 9.1 on the magnitude scale. Within 20 minutes, waves 60 feet high hit the region at hundreds of miles per hour.
MISRAN YUSUF (through translator): It sounded like thunder. I held my breath and the water came over the rooftops. When I surfaced, I saw people clinging to a tree trunk. They pulled me on board and we floated until we reached the next village.
KIRA KAY: One hundred and thirty thousand people died, and whole communities vanished. Lampuuk’s lone standing mosque became an iconic image of the disaster. Ten years later, it is hard to picture that destruction on the streets of the capital city, Banda Aceh.
The once shattered downtown is now firmly back in business. The riverside, choked with debris, is a thriving waterfront again. People overall seem happy. The tsunami had carved a new shoreline, disappearing whole blocks of the community of Ulee Lee. But now it is a favorite beach destination for families. Only small hints remain of what happened here.
Mayor Illiza Sa’aduddin says the region has built back better.
MAYOR ILLIZA SA’ADUDDIN DJAMAL, Banda Aceh, Indonesia (through interpreter): The economy has improved. Our poverty level has decreased to a rate that is below the national average. Our infrastructure is better than even before the tsunami. Roads are now reaching remote villages. There are a lot of lessons that Aceh can share about how we got back on our feet and how we were able to cooperate with many institutions.
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