Life has resumed its tranquil course in Ikra's fishing village of Lampuk, which was all but wiped off the map on that awful day on December 26, 2004, when an earthquake off the Sumatran coast unleashed a wall of water.

Most of the physical damage has been cleaned up thanks to a massive international relief effort, but the emotional and psychological trauma for the survivors of Indonesia's Aceh province may never heal.

"Even if I wanted to, I couldn't forget. It's the same for my friends who survived," Ikra says, her voice breaking.

Indonesia was the nation hardest hit by the tsunami, with at least 168,000 people killed when the sea surged over the northern tip of Sumatra island. Over 50,000 more died in Sri Lanka, Thailand and India.

Images of the devastation around Lampuk, where the mosque was the only building left standing in a landscape of flattened trees and rubble, were flashed around the world in the days after the disaster.

Houses, schools, businesses and markets were washed away as far as seven kilometres (four miles) inland, and more than one in five villagers lost their lives.

People felt the 9.3-magnitude undersea quake that morning, but few had the presence of mind or the time to head for higher ground as the tsunami bore down on them with the speed of a passenger jet.

"I was with my grandmother but the wave separated us. I was carried away and then some people saved me. My grandmother drowned," Ikra recalls.

Her baby brother, mother and grandfather also died, but her father managed to survive by clinging to a tree. Women and children died in the greatest numbers. Of 300 children at Ikra's school, only 24 survived.

One of the two surviving teachers, Khairiah, 43, thanks the international community for the outpouring of aid that rebuilt the school and provided her with a new house, one of 700 constructed by the Turkish Red Cross.

"The village was totally rebuilt thanks to the aid which we received from all over the world," Khairiah says.

But the brightly coloured new homes tell only half the story, she adds. "It looks like life is normal here, but the trauma remains."

Indonesia's tsunami reconstruction agency wound up its work in April, having spent almost seven billion dollars on reconstruction including 140,000 new homes, 1,759 school buildings, 363 bridges and 13 airports.

Confronted by the terrible loss of life and basic infrastructure, the Indonesian government sat down for talks with Acehnese rebels who had waged a three-decade war for independence.

In 2005 the two sides struck a peace deal guaranteeing far-reaching autonomy for the province, and thousands of demobilised rebels were put to work on reconstruction.

But with the relief agencies gone and the international aid exhausted, there are concerns that chronic unemployment could undermine the peace process.

And there is the ever-present fear that with the Indo-Australian tectonic plates in relentless motion, another catastrophe of the scale of 2004 is almost certain to hit Sumatra again.

Khairiah, a devout Muslim, says that despite the danger she has never considered leaving her seaside home.

"It's our village. If a new disaster hits us, that's our destiny," she says.

Ikra also says she wants to stay, and as the nightmares fade, she is also dreaming of becoming a teacher.

Share This Article With Planet Earth

del.icio.us	Digg	Reddit
YahooMyWeb	Google	Facebook

Related Links
Bringing Order To A World Of Disasters
When the Earth Quakes
A world of storm and tempest

Memory Foam Mattress Review

SPACE MEDIA NETWORK PROMOTIONS Solar Energy Solutions Tempur-Pedic Mattress Comparison ... Newsletters :: SpaceDaily :: SpaceWar :: TerraDaily :: Energy Daily XML Feeds :: Space News :: Earth News :: War News :: Solar Energy News