Sumatra, Three Years After the Tsunami
Man praying at tsunami mass graves. Banda Aceh, 2007. Image: Adrianne Jeffries

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Sumatra, Three Years After the Tsunami

Photos from the heart of the 2004 tsunami devastation, three years into recovery.

​It's the 10th anniversary of the Indian Ocean tsunami that killed more than 230,000 people in 2004. The disaster was unique because of the level of devastation—a 9.1 earthquake that occurred off the coast of Indonesia and affected all of Southeast Asia as well as the east coast of Africa—and for the outpouring of donations that came in through the internet, a relatively new method of fundraising.

More than half the deaths in the tsunami occurred in the Indonesian island of Sumatra, primarily in the Aceh province at the north tip. The first challenge after the tsunami was facing the sheer number of dead. The bodies had to be identified and their relatives told, but there was chaos and the corpses were decomposing in the sun.

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The countries affected were almost completely taken by surprise. The region is prone to tsunamis that are "both infrequent and catastrophic," US Geological Survey geologist Brian Atwater ​told reporters at the time, but they're so rare that the fear of a tsunami had not taken hold in many of the local cultures. Scientists later found evidence of at least three major tsunamis in that area, the most recent being 550 to 700 years earlier.

I traveled to Aceh in 2007. There was evidence of the funds flowing in from the Red Cross and other aid groups, but the signs of the earthquake were still fresh.

A sign for a children's center built by Enfants Refugies du Monde, a French charity. Signs like this were common.

Tsunami survivors in relatively newly built housing.

"Do not throw trash here."

New houses.

And roadside shacks.

Bovine tsunami survivors.

The landmark Baiturrahman Grand Mosque survived the storm.

Roofs of the market in Medan.

Earthquake damage in Medan.

Earthquake damage in Medan.

Life goes on.

Parts of Indonesia, like the fishing industry, have recovered fully, and the tsunami helped calm the violence that was there due to political infighting by Aceh secessionists. The housing infrastructure has been rebuilt, despite problems with construction, theft, and logistical difficulties around proving land ownership.

However, locals and aid groups say the country still desperately needs help. More than 80 percent of projects designed to help survivors become self-sufficient ​have failed, the director of the International Center for Aceh and Indian Ocean Studies in Banda Aceh told the L.A. Times, and aid groups are losing interest. There's hope for the future—Sumatra is gorgeous, and tourism could be a boon, as it has been in neighboring Sri Lanka—but the dependence on aid money and the dwindling supply of it are cause for concern.

The area has definitely bounced back since 2007 when I was there. I'm reading reports of KFCs, malls, and traffic jams. And on the 10th anniversary of the tragedy, thousands of Indonesians gathered to pray at the mosque that withstood the waves.

All images by Adrianne Jeffries.