Twenty years on from Boxing Day Tsunami: World Vision staffer reflects on the disaster’s legacy
This Boxing Day will mark 20 years since a massive Tsunami caused widespread devastation, death, and displacement in countries, such as Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka and Thailand.
On 26 December 2004, an earthquake registering 9.0 on the Richter scale struck off the west coast of the Indonesia island of Sumatra and triggered a series of tsunamis that charged across the Indian Ocean.
The surging waves were reported to reach up to nine metres or more in some places by the time they hit the shoreline, and washed kilometres inland destroying everything in their path.
More than 220,000 people lost their lives in the Tsunami and its aftermath, more than one million were left homeless, and more than five million were affected in some way.
World Vision had bases in many of the countries affected and was one of the primary aid agencies to respond in the immediate aftermath of the catastrophe.
The disaster was so huge in scale and led to World Vision mounting its largest-ever single relief response across five countries.
The tragedy moved New Zealanders and drove a massive fundraising response. New Zealanders gave more than $26million to the relief response, including more than $4.5million to World Vision alone.
New Zealander, Heather MacLeod, was working for World Vision at the time and was initially posted to the hardest hit region of Aceh on the Indonesian island of Sumatra. More people died in Aceh than anywhere else, with some 120,000 people losing their lives.
MacLeod says even now, twenty years later, she still remembers the scenes that greeted her when she landed in Aceh a few days after the Tsunami.
“It was a scene of utter devastation. It looked like a desert – there was nothing anywhere, no buildings, just concrete foundations and randomly scattered items. A shoe here, a shoe there, a kitchen ladle. It was as though someone had picked up everything and dropped it from the sky.
“There were still bodies around, but most of them had been wrapped and covered. So many people just walking around looking dazed and distressed.
“There was devastation everywhere, even several kilometres inland so a long way from the shoreline. That’s how far the waves had ripped through. It was pretty confronting,” she says.
MacLeod’s initial role was to focus on the protection of children and so she was helping to support not just securing basic supplies, such as food and shelter, but also worked to identify children and families who needed access to psychological support to help them get through such a traumatic time.
MacLeod says it was the psychological distress of those affected that has really stayed with her.
“I remember speaking with this one woman and she said to me, ‘I can’t find my daughter. She’s under that building’ and so she knew where her daughter was, but she couldn’t reach her.
“What struck me was the enormous grief and distress that people were feeling. Distress at not being able to find family members, at not being able to retrieve bodies, at not knowing what the future held. And people need support to deal with that. They almost can’t think about food and shelter when they are experiencing that level of distress,” MacLeod says.
She and her team were responsible for establishing “child-friendly spaces” in Aceh, a programme used by World Vision to give children access to support and psychological help, but also a warm and inviting space where they can play, be with friends, and experience normalcy and routine.
“These spaces are so important for children because it gives them a sense of routine. And if the same thing happens every day, they know they can look forward to that safety and security the next day, and the next.
“We weren’t eliminating the terrible things that had happened, but we were giving them that ounce of hope every day that something good could happen. Play is such an important opportunity for kids, and adults, to switch off from their worries and rest their brains,” she says.
MacLeod says the scale of the disaster was such that aid organisations learnt much from the response, about working together, about responding in different cultural contexts, about managing volunteers, and about using donations responsibly and over a long period of time.
“World Vision was fortunate because we had programmes operating in all of the affected countries so we could expand on these and we already had partnerships in place with local partners so it was very easy to hit the ground running.
“But most of these countries were also dealing with existing issues including conflict in some places so it was a very challenging environment. It was relatively easy to sort out the access to food, water and temporary shelter, but then there was a lot of complexity around re-building and re-establishing communities and livelihoods that was very challenging,” MacLeod says.
She says having strong leadership within a community was a telling difference to ensure that programming and interventions were successful.
“You can do so much more in a community where there’s clear leadership helping people to pull together and looking out for the most vulnerable,” she says.
MacLeod says the response from New Zealanders giving to the relief effort was incredible.
New Zealanders contributed around $26million in total to Tsunami relief efforts and MacLeod says it was probably the largest-ever fundraising contribution from Kiwis for a single disaster.
“New Zealanders responded to this disaster so strongly and I think it’s because we are also an island nation which could be affected by a Tsunami. Many of the countries affected were places where Kiwis holiday, so they were places many of us had visited. The footage on television was just so shocking and that really impacted. And the scale of the disaster was just so great – so many people were killed, including New Zealanders. Kiwis were really just incredibly generous.”
MacLeod says one of the important legacies of the Boxing Day Tsunami was the importance of disaster preparedness which World Vision now implements in many of the countries it works in, including in all of the Pacific nations it has a presence.
“I think it has really highlighted how important that work is to be prepared for a disaster, to have a good pool of people ready respond, to work closely with governments. And to respond not just to immediate and basic needs, but also to psychological and cultural needs as well as long-term needs. That is so important,” she says.
MacLeod was awarded the New Zealand Special Service Medal (NZSM) for her work contributing to the relief effort for the Asian Tsunami.
She says her work in Aceh and managing the Tsunami response it is something that has stayed with her, even 20 years on.
“It took me quite a long time to go the beach after the Tsunami and not be drawn back into all I had seen.
“I remember being on a beach in India a while after the Tsunami and the kids were also too scared to go down to be at the beach so I invited a bunch of them to come down and play cricket. They realised that the beach is not all bad and that they could still experience joy there. And it was good for me in that sense too,” she says.
World Vision is still working in many of the countries affected by the Asian Tsunami and was involved in delivering emergency food, water and shelter in the immediate aftermath.
The aid organisation also provided child protection services, psychological support, disaster preparedness programmes, reconstruction of housing and infrastructure, and long-term community development programming.
Learn more about how you can help other communities affected by disaster and conflict.
On 26 December 2004, an earthquake registering 9.0 on the Richter scale struck off the west coast of the Indonesia island of Sumatra and triggered a series of tsunamis that charged across the Indian Ocean.
The surging waves were reported to reach up to nine metres or more in some places by the time they hit the shoreline, and washed kilometres inland destroying everything in their path.
More than 220,000 people lost their lives in the Tsunami and its aftermath, more than one million were left homeless, and more than five million were affected in some way.
World Vision had bases in many of the countries affected and was one of the primary aid agencies to respond in the immediate aftermath of the catastrophe.
The disaster was so huge in scale and led to World Vision mounting its largest-ever single relief response across five countries.
The tragedy moved New Zealanders and drove a massive fundraising response. New Zealanders gave more than $26million to the relief response, including more than $4.5million to World Vision alone.
New Zealander, Heather MacLeod, was working for World Vision at the time and was initially posted to the hardest hit region of Aceh on the Indonesian island of Sumatra. More people died in Aceh than anywhere else, with some 120,000 people losing their lives.
MacLeod says even now, twenty years later, she still remembers the scenes that greeted her when she landed in Aceh a few days after the Tsunami.
“It was a scene of utter devastation. It looked like a desert – there was nothing anywhere, no buildings, just concrete foundations and randomly scattered items. A shoe here, a shoe there, a kitchen ladle. It was as though someone had picked up everything and dropped it from the sky.
“There were still bodies around, but most of them had been wrapped and covered. So many people just walking around looking dazed and distressed.
“There was devastation everywhere, even several kilometres inland so a long way from the shoreline. That’s how far the waves had ripped through. It was pretty confronting,” she says.
MacLeod’s initial role was to focus on the protection of children and so she was helping to support not just securing basic supplies, such as food and shelter, but also worked to identify children and families who needed access to psychological support to help them get through such a traumatic time.
MacLeod says it was the psychological distress of those affected that has really stayed with her.
“I remember speaking with this one woman and she said to me, ‘I can’t find my daughter. She’s under that building’ and so she knew where her daughter was, but she couldn’t reach her.
“What struck me was the enormous grief and distress that people were feeling. Distress at not being able to find family members, at not being able to retrieve bodies, at not knowing what the future held. And people need support to deal with that. They almost can’t think about food and shelter when they are experiencing that level of distress,” MacLeod says.
She and her team were responsible for establishing “child-friendly spaces” in Aceh, a programme used by World Vision to give children access to support and psychological help, but also a warm and inviting space where they can play, be with friends, and experience normalcy and routine.
“These spaces are so important for children because it gives them a sense of routine. And if the same thing happens every day, they know they can look forward to that safety and security the next day, and the next.
“We weren’t eliminating the terrible things that had happened, but we were giving them that ounce of hope every day that something good could happen. Play is such an important opportunity for kids, and adults, to switch off from their worries and rest their brains,” she says.
MacLeod says the scale of the disaster was such that aid organisations learnt much from the response, about working together, about responding in different cultural contexts, about managing volunteers, and about using donations responsibly and over a long period of time.
“World Vision was fortunate because we had programmes operating in all of the affected countries so we could expand on these and we already had partnerships in place with local partners so it was very easy to hit the ground running.
“But most of these countries were also dealing with existing issues including conflict in some places so it was a very challenging environment. It was relatively easy to sort out the access to food, water and temporary shelter, but then there was a lot of complexity around re-building and re-establishing communities and livelihoods that was very challenging,” MacLeod says.
She says having strong leadership within a community was a telling difference to ensure that programming and interventions were successful.
“You can do so much more in a community where there’s clear leadership helping people to pull together and looking out for the most vulnerable,” she says.
MacLeod says the response from New Zealanders giving to the relief effort was incredible.
New Zealanders contributed around $26million in total to Tsunami relief efforts and MacLeod says it was probably the largest-ever fundraising contribution from Kiwis for a single disaster.
“New Zealanders responded to this disaster so strongly and I think it’s because we are also an island nation which could be affected by a Tsunami. Many of the countries affected were places where Kiwis holiday, so they were places many of us had visited. The footage on television was just so shocking and that really impacted. And the scale of the disaster was just so great – so many people were killed, including New Zealanders. Kiwis were really just incredibly generous.”
MacLeod says one of the important legacies of the Boxing Day Tsunami was the importance of disaster preparedness which World Vision now implements in many of the countries it works in, including in all of the Pacific nations it has a presence.
“I think it has really highlighted how important that work is to be prepared for a disaster, to have a good pool of people ready respond, to work closely with governments. And to respond not just to immediate and basic needs, but also to psychological and cultural needs as well as long-term needs. That is so important,” she says.
MacLeod was awarded the New Zealand Special Service Medal (NZSM) for her work contributing to the relief effort for the Asian Tsunami.
She says her work in Aceh and managing the Tsunami response it is something that has stayed with her, even 20 years on.
“It took me quite a long time to go the beach after the Tsunami and not be drawn back into all I had seen.
“I remember being on a beach in India a while after the Tsunami and the kids were also too scared to go down to be at the beach so I invited a bunch of them to come down and play cricket. They realised that the beach is not all bad and that they could still experience joy there. And it was good for me in that sense too,” she says.
World Vision is still working in many of the countries affected by the Asian Tsunami and was involved in delivering emergency food, water and shelter in the immediate aftermath.
The aid organisation also provided child protection services, psychological support, disaster preparedness programmes, reconstruction of housing and infrastructure, and long-term community development programming.
Learn more about how you can help other communities affected by disaster and conflict.