It was Mahyuddin’s mother who had pestered him to go out on Sunday morning, 20 years ago. Dozens of relatives were visiting their small coastal village in Indonesia for a wedding party, but a powerful earthquake had struck just before 8am. Buildings in some areas had collapsed. He should go and check on his employer’s office to see if they needed help, his mother said.
As he drove into town, he found chaos and panic. The road was heavy with traffic: cars, motorbikes, trucks, all rushing in the same direction. People were running, shouting that water was coming.
“I had to do something to save myself,” he says. “I decided to leave my motorbike because there wasn’t enough space, and I ran.” He ended up at a junction.
First, a shallow sheet of water spread across the main road. It rose rapidly into a powerful flood, dark in colour and carrying a stream of debris: home furnishings, strips of wood, anything the wave had swallowed in its path. People clambered on to a structure at the centre of the intersection, climbed trees and street posts to survive. Bodies were visible in the flowing water.
Mahyuddin managed to cling to safety. His village, close to the beach and hit by an even greater force, was completely destroyed.
He returned the next day to search for his relatives. It was there that he met Ema Listyana. Her family gave him food, and they searched through dead bodies together.
A year later they married.
The Indian Ocean tsunami, which crashed into Aceh province in Indonesia on Boxing Day 20 years ago, caused devastation unlike any other in recorded history. The waves, which towered as high as 30 metres, killed 227,899 people across 15 countries.
Aceh, on the northern tip of Sumatra Island, was the worst hit. More than 160,000 people died, about 5% of the population. Those who survived lost their homes, businesses and loved ones. Yet out of such a tragedy emerged a touching legacy – eventually people found love and made new beginnings.
Research has shown that the tsunami was followed by a baby boom. Areas that suffered the highest loss of life in the tsunami recorded large increases in fertility. During the second half of the 2000-2009 decade, fertility was nearly half a birth higher per woman compared with pre-tsunami levels.
A later study, on remarriage patterns, found that of the 18% of households that reported the death of a spouse, two-thirds remarried within the next decade. The majority did so within the first three years of the disaster.
Such marriages played a critical role in rebuilding Aceh, says Ida Fitria, a lecturer at the faculty of psychology at UIN Ar-Raniry, a university in Banda Aceh, who co-authored the study. “[It] provided stability for children … it also played a role in personal psychological recovery, emotional support,” she says, adding that such marriages contributed to the repopulation of devastated areas of Aceh.
Muhammad Zaini, an imam in Keude Bieng, officiated about 100 marriages in the year after the tsunami, he says. Most were older couples remarrying after losing a spouse.
He hoped it would help to ease the trauma people had suffered. “Maybe with a new household, a new partner, the spirit of life that was lost would slowly grow back,” he says.
Ema recalls meeting her husband in the aftermath of the tsunami. “My family still had a house, it was not totally broken, so I said let’s go and eat together there.”
Today, in their quiet, cosy living room, the events of 26 December 2004 feel a world away. There are glasses of warm, sweet jasmine tea on the table and pink Hello Kitty cushions perched on the sofa. Beside the TV, there is a stack of trophies, won by Ema and their 17-year-old daughter, Putri Adinda – the healthiest baby award, first place in mothers’ book reading competition and a student quiz.
Mahyuddin lost his mother, father, eight siblings and much of his extended family in the tsunami. Most of Ema’s immediate family, who lived in a village that was less badly hit, survived, but she lost relatives from her cousin’s side. “I felt like he was my family because I lost someone, he also lost someone,” she says.
Fitria says that after 10 years of marriage, most couples are still happy. “We found out a very, very small [proportion] of them had a problem,” she says.
Past studies have shown that women and widows are vulnerable to increased rates of domestic violence or sexual violence in the aftermath of a conflict or disaster. Research has also shown that “emergency” marriages might contribute to an increased risk of violence or a higher divorce rate. The study co-authored by Fitria did not draw statistically reliable conclusions about the rates of abuse in post-tsunami marriages.
People reported remarrying for a range of reasons, with many widows saying they wanted economic stability, and several widowers saying they wanted someone to take care of them as they grew old.
Some men and women said they wanted to have children, or to avoid being the source of gossip. Fitria does not believe people felt pressured to marry, but says there is a firm cultural belief in the importance of marriage in Aceh, a staunchly conservative province which is the only part of Indonesia that implements sharia law.
The wedding ceremonies that took place after the tsunami were far from the spectacular, grand weddings that take place in normal times in Aceh.
“The concept was more focused on the legal aspect,” says Zaini. “For example, we only called two witnesses. If there was a guardian, we immediately married them. So there was no reception. There was nothing.”
Sometimes the ceremonies felt unusual, he says, “because the ones who get married are the wife’s friends and her husband’s friends, and usually not from distant circles. There are some who knew each other’s families before the tsunami, lived in the same village and lived close by,” he recalls. “The point is, marriage aims to help each other.”
Arranged marriages were rare, he adds. “Now we no longer dare to match people, even if they are our own children – afraid that if something happens, we will be the ones to blame.”
Mahyuddin and Ema still live in the same village as Mahyuddin’s family, Deah Glumpang, just two kilometres away from his old home. It was completely destroyed in 2004. Of 1,030 people living in the village, only 100 survived – mostly because they were away at the time the water struck.
Today, the population of Deah Glumpang has grown to at least 1,300. There are homes built in the styles of NGOs that helped 20 years ago, as is the case in many villages.
Memories of the tsunami are imprinted everywhere across Aceh. Curious tourists pay to visit the relic of an old ship that was flung inland by the waves, and which has now been transformed into a museum. Elsewhere, remnants of the disaster are hidden away in nature. The foundations of what was once a mosque is tucked away in the fields, young palm trees springing from its centre. The structure of an old bridge, once part of a village, pokes out above the sea.
Mahyuddin, now 66, and Ema, 42, were marrying for the first time, though she points out her husband was marrying late compared with most people in Aceh. “Before the tsunami he was not willing to get married because he still had his mother, and he wanted to take care of his mother,” she says. “He is a hard-working man, who was supporting his family. He had sisters and brothers but some became widows. He was the breadwinner.”
Mahyuddin was never able to find his relatives’ bodies, though his mother visited him in a dream, he says, and told him in which of the area’s mass graves she was buried. Some families visit all three sites, because they have no idea where their loved ones were taken.
The memories of what happened do still come back, even 20 years on, says Mahyuddin. “Mostly when I’m sitting alone. A flashback comes and tears come from my eyes,” he says. “I try to avoid sitting alone.”
Today they will gather together and pray at the mosque, as is tradition every year.
His wife and daughter are both volunteers who raise awareness of disaster preparedness in the community. He is proud of them both, he says. “At least we have knowledge [now] and we already know how to escape, how to survive.”
