BANDA ACEH, Indonesia – The sickening smell hit me hard, even though I had been warned about it when I was assigned to cover the devastation in Banda Aceh, Indonesia, as a photojournalist a week after the tsunami hit on Dec 26, 2004.
The reek of decaying bodies was impossible to ignore, and just as impossible to get used to. The scarf covering my nose was heavily smeared with Vicks VapoRub medicated ointment, but that did not help much to disguise the odour of death as I approached the city centre. Most residents used whatever they could lay their hands on, including coffee powder, to smear on their noses to mask the smell.
The streets of the city centre were littered with fishing boats, warped vehicles, mattresses, wooden furniture, personal belongings, and bodies stacked in huge piles up to 5m high. It looked like a scene from a blockbuster disaster movie. But this was for real.
From the heavy stench, I immediately knew that many more bodies lay underneath the city’s ruins, yet to be recovered. Thousands of lives were claimed by the giant waves in just minutes.
With only a few excavators and little heavy equipment available, most of the recovery work, including the retrieval of bodies, was carried out by hand.
The most horrifying scene I encountered was underneath the Peunayong Bridge where many boats were smashed up among the endless debris. In the midst of this, dozens of corpses lay in plain sight, blackened from rot and unrecognisable, like badly charred mannequins.
Navigating through the chaos, I spotted her: A frail figure with long dishevelled hair, sitting on top of a crumpled piece of luggage in the middle of a street. She gazed into the distance, looking like she had just emerged from a nightmare in which the world had crashed down on her.
She appeared to be in her early 20s – oblivious to her surroundings. The swirling dust and whirring of passing motorcycles felt like a cruel juxtaposition to the stillness surrounding her. In that moment, the sheer weight of her loss enveloped me.
An elderly person nearby explained to me that the collapsed double-storey building she was sitting across from used to be her home. It was now all rubble, and it had buried her entire family. I felt paralysed – my mind was wrestling with the reality of the tragedy that had struck her.
“I had steeled myself for the rotting corpses and destruction before I flew out to Aceh. Yet nothing could have prepared me for the sight of a young survivor in despair, so utterly broken by her plight.”
I was supposed to be documenting what I saw before me, but I did not take a single photograph that afternoon. The enormity of her loss weighed heavily on me.
That heartrending scene still haunts me 20 years later. There were thousands of stories like hers and these are the scars that the Acehnese and many affected by the tsunami in the region have to live with for the rest of their lives.
That was my first foray into the heart of the city, having been embedded in the Singapore Armed Forces’ humanitarian mission to the areas surrounding Aceh’s capital city Banda Aceh for a few days. Accompanying me was The Straits Times’ journalist Arlina Arshad, who is now its Indonesia bureau chief.
I had stepped in to take over from the now-retired ST photojournalist Aziz Hussin who had been in Aceh for a week, and was one of the first foreign media members to arrive at the epicentre of the disaster.
In November 2024, I returned to Banda Aceh for the first time in two decades, together with two colleagues.
I found the place almost unrecognisable. In place of the ruins and rubble were shops, hotels, eateries, coffee joints and bustling streets.
Smells assailed my senses once again, but this time, they were of smoked bananas, petrol fumes, and the salty sea air.
The Acehnese have rebuilt their homes and lives, even as they remember their loved ones who were lost to the disaster, and erected memorials in their honour.
One such memorial I visited was the impressive Tsunami Museum in Aceh. The futuristic four-storey building, which was opened in 2009, was designed as a symbolic reminder of the disaster, as well as an educational centre.
Once inside, visitors negotiate their way through a dim, narrow corridor between 30m-high walls meant to recreate the noise and panic of the tsunami itself.
In addition to its role as a memorial for those who perished, the museum’s rooftop offers a place of refuge and shelter in the event of a disaster.
Exhibits include an electronic simulation of the tsunami, photographs of victims and stories from survivors.
It was heartening to see many young students who were there to learn about the events experienced by their friends and relatives.
The museum also teaches them about the types of natural disasters that could occur in their area, such as tsunamis and earthquakes, which helps them to understand the risks. They are also shown emergency evacuation drills and disaster survival skills.
Twenty years is a long time, but the impact of such a life-shattering event remains with Aceh’s residents as it does with me. The Acehnese have found ways to honour what was lost and are well prepared for the future and what it brings.