IMahiddin's mother was the one who urged him to go out on a Sunday morning 20 years ago. Dozens of relatives were visiting a small coastal village in Indonesia for a wedding party when a strong earthquake struck just before 8am. Buildings collapsed in some areas. His mother said he should go to his employer's office and see if he needed help.
As I drove into town, I noticed chaos and panic. The roads were busy with traffic, cars, bikes, and trucks all hurtling in the same direction. People were running and shouting that water was coming.
“I had to do something to save myself,” he says. “I didn't have any space, so I decided to leave my bike behind and run.” He eventually reached an intersection.
First, there was a stretch of shallow water across the main road. The waves rolled in rapidly, black in color, carrying streams of debris, including household goods and pieces of wood that the waves had swallowed in their path. People survived by climbing structures in the middle of intersections, climbing trees and street pillars. A dead body was visible in the flowing water.
Mahiuddin managed to cling to safety. His village, close to the coast, was attacked by an even greater force and was completely destroyed.
He returned the next day to look for his relatives. There he met Emma Listyana. Her family fed him and searched for the body together.
A year later they were married.
The Indian Ocean tsunami that struck Indonesia's Aceh province on Boxing Day 20 years ago caused devastation unprecedented in recorded history. Waves up to 30 meters high killed 227,899 people in 15 countries.
Aceh province, at the northern tip of Sumatra, was the hardest hit. More than 160,000 people, about 5% of the population, died. Those who survived lost their homes, jobs, and loved ones. But out of such a tragedy came a touching legacy, where people ultimately found love and made a new start.
According to research, The tsunami was followed by a baby boom.. Significant increases in birth rates were recorded in areas that suffered the most loss of life in the tsunami. In the second half of the 2000-2009 decade, fertility rates were nearly half as many births per woman compared to pre-tsunami levels.
A subsequent study of remarriage patterns found that of the 18% of households that reported the death of a spouse; Two-thirds will remarry within the next 10 years. The majority did so within the first three years of the disaster.
Study co-author Aida Fitria, a lecturer in the Department of Psychology at Banda Aceh's UIN al-Ranili university, said these marriages played an important role in Aceh's rebuilding. “[It] It provided stability for the children… It also played a role in the psychological recovery and emotional support of the individual,” she said, adding that such marriages contributed to the repopulation of devastated areas in Aceh. added.
Muhammad Zaini, the imam of Khudevien, officiated about 100 weddings in the year after the tsunami, he said. Most of them were older couples who had remarried after losing their spouses.
He hoped it would help alleviate the trauma people had suffered. “Maybe with a new family or a new partner, the soul of the lost life may slowly come back,” he says.
Emma recalls meeting her husband in the aftermath of the tsunami. “My family still had a house and it wasn't completely destroyed, so I said let's go eat there together.”
Now, in my quiet, cozy living room, the events of December 26, 2004 seem a world away. A glass of warm, sweet jasmine tea is placed on the table, and pink Hello Kitty cushions are placed on the sofa. Next to the TV is a pile of trophies that Emma and her 17-year-old daughter Putri Adinda have won, including the healthiest baby award, first place in a mother's reading contest and a student quiz.
Mahiuddin lost his mother, father, eight siblings and much of his extended family in the tsunami. Most of Emma's immediate family, who lived in less-hit villages, survived, but she lost a cousin on her side. “I felt like he was my family because I lost someone and he lost someone,” she says.
Fitoria said that even after 10 years of marriage, most couples are still happy. “We found a very small problem. [proportion] Some of them had problems,” she says. Reasons for remarriage varied, with many widows saying they wanted financial security and some wanting someone to take care of them when they were older.
Some men and women said they wanted to have children or wanted to avoid being the subject of gossip. Fitoria doesn't think people felt pressured to get married, but Aceh, Indonesia's only staunchly conservative province that enforces Sharia law, has a strong cultural appreciation for the importance of marriage. He said his beliefs are firmly rooted.
The wedding that took place after the tsunami was a far cry from the grandeur and lavish weddings held in peacetime in Aceh.
“The concept was focused on the legal side,” Zaini says. “For example, we only called two people as witnesses. If there was a guardian, they got married right away. So there was no reception. There was nothing.”
At times, he said, the ritual felt unusual. “Because the people who get married are friends of the wife and friends of the husband, and usually not people from far away. They knew each other's families before the tsunami, lived in the same village, lived nearby. Some people were there,” he recalls. “The important thing is that marriage is about helping each other.”
Arranged marriages were rare, he added. “Now we no longer have the courage to conform to people, even if it is our own children. We are afraid that if something happens, we will be responsible. Masu.”
Mahiuddin and Emma still live in the same village as Mahiuddin's family, Der Grunpan, just two kilometers from Mahiuddin's old home. The village was completely destroyed in 2004. Of the 1,030 people who lived in the village, only 100 survived. Most of them were because they were away when the water hit.
Today, the population of Der Grumpan has increased to at least 1,300 people. As in many villages, some of the houses were built in the style of the NGOs we supported 20 years ago.
Memories of the tsunami are etched in every corner of Aceh. Curious tourists visit the remains of old ships that were blown inland by the waves and are now turned into museums. Elsewhere, the remains of the disaster are hidden in nature. The foundations of a former mosque are tucked away in a field, with a young palm tree growing at its center. An old bridge structure, once part of the village, juts out over the sea.
Mahyuddin, now 66, and Emma, 42, were married for the first time, but she points out that her husband married later than most people in Aceh. “Before the tsunami, he had no intention of getting married because he still had his mother and wanted to take care of her,” she says. “He was a hard-working man and supported his family. He had sisters and brothers, some of whom were widowed. He was the breadwinner.”
Mahiddin was unable to find the bodies of his relatives, but his mother visited him in a dream and told him which of three mass graves he was buried in. Some families visit all three locations because they don't know where their loved ones have been taken.
Mahiddin said the memories of what happened still come back 20 years later. “Usually when I'm sitting alone, I get flashbacks and tears come to my eyes,” he says. “I try to avoid sitting alone.”
Today, as is their annual tradition, they gather at the mosque to pray.
His wife and daughter work as volunteers to raise disaster prevention awareness in the community. He's proud of both, he says. “At least we have knowledge.” 1735176023 And we already know how to escape, how to survive. ”
