Indonesians mark 2 decades since the tragic tsunami that killed hundreds of thousands
Two decades after a catastrophic tsunami destroyed her village, Tria Asnani still cries when she recalls how she lost her mother while trying to escape the giant waves and her father to the sea
BANDA ACEH, Indonesia (AP) — Two decades after a catastrophic tsunami destroyed her village, Tria Asnani still cries when she recalls how she lost her mother while trying to escape the giant waves.
Asnani, now a school teacher, was only 17 at the time. Her father, who was a fisherman, never returned home from sea. She doesn't know how she survived. “I cannot swim. I could only rely on dhikr (Islamic prayer).”
On Dec. 26, 2004, a powerful 9.1-magnitude earthquake off the coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra triggered a tsunami that killed around 230,000 people across a dozen countries, reaching as far as East Africa.
But Indonesia’s Aceh province, located closest to the earthquake’s epicenter and with 18 of 23 districts and cities located in the coastal line in the Northern side of Sumatra, bore the brunt of the disaster with more than half of the total death toll reported.
