December 26, 2004, will long be remembered throughout the countries near the Indian Ocean. That was the day a killer tsunami struck several countries, killing thousands of people. Told by veteran reporter John Torres from firsthand accounts, this is the story of that disaster and the remarkable way the world responded. It is a story of horror and disaster as normal everyday people were forced to become heroes and help save lives as well as rebuild their own.

The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami caused immense destruction and over 170,000 deaths in the Indonesian province of Aceh. The disaster spurred large-scale social and political changes in Aceh, including the intensified implementation of shari‘a law and an end to the long separatist conflict. After the Tsunami explores Acehnese survivors’ experiences of the deadly waves and the subsequent reconstruction process through the stories they tell about the disaster. Narratives, author Annemarie Samuels argues, are both a window onto the process of remaking everyday life and an essential component of it. Building on long-term ethnographic fieldwork, Samuels shows how the everyday work of recovery is indispensable for any large-scale reconstruction effort to succeed. Recovery is an ambiguous process in which grief remains as life goes on, where optimism and disappointment, remembering and forgetting, structural poverty and the rhetoric of success are often intertwined in individual and social worlds. Such paradoxes are key and form a thread through the five chapters of the book. Addressing post-disaster reconstruction from the survivors’ perspectives opens up space for criticism of post-disaster governance without reducing the discussion of recovery to top-down interventions. Individual histories, emotions, creativity, and ways of being in the world, the author argues, inform the remaking of worlds as much as social, political, and cultural transformations do. After the Tsunami is a provocative and highly significant contribution to studies of humanitarian aid and disaster, psychological anthropology, narrative studies, and scholarly studies of Indonesia and Southeast Asia. Its elegant style, pointed theorizing, and moving ethnographic descriptions will draw readers into Acehnese lifeworlds and politics. Its narratives attest to Acehnese ways of living with loss, within and across a history of colonial and postcolonial violence and suffering and a present of political uncertainty and hope.

The Indian Ocean tsunami of December 2004 is considered to have been one of the worst natural disasters in history, affecting twelve countries, from Indonesia to Somalia. 175,000 people are believed to have lost their lives, almost 50,000 were registered as missing and 1.7 million people were displaced. As well as this horrendous toll on human life

December 2004, a tsunami swept over the coasts of Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, Thailand, and other South Asian countries, leaving hundreds of thousands dead and many more without the resources to rebuild their lives. With casualties as far away as Africa, the aftermath was overwhelming: ships could be spotted miles inland; cars floated in the ocean; legions of the unidentified deadùan estimated 225,000ùwere buried in mass graves; relief organizations struggled to reach rural areas and provide adequate aid to survivors. The Indian Ocean Tsunami: The Global Response to a Natural Disaster is the first comprehensive assessment of the environmental, social, and economic costs of this tragedy. Soon after the tsunami, an international team of geographers, geologists, anthropologists, and political scientists traveled to the most damaged areas to observe and document the tsunami's impact. The Indian Ocean Tsunami draws on data collected by this team. Editors Pradyumna P. Karan and Shanmugam P. Subbiah, along with contributors from multiple disciplines, examine numerous issues that arose in the aftermath of the tsunami, such as inequities in response efforts, unequal distribution of disaster relief aid, and relocation and housing problems. The Indian Ocean Tsunami is organized into several sections, the first of which deals with the ecological destruction of the tsunami. It includes case studies and photographs of the damage in Japan, Indonesia, South India, and other areas. The second section analyzes the economic and social aspects of the aid responses, specifically discussing the role of NGOs in tsunami relief, the strengths and weaknesses of the reconstruction process, and the lessons the tsunami offers to those who are responsible for dealing with future disasters. In the tsunami's aftermath, the inadequacies of governmental and privately funded aid and the challenge of rehabilitating devastated ecosystems quickly became apparent. With this volume, Karan and Suhbiah illuminate the need for the development of efficient, socially and environmentally sustainable practices to cope with environmental disasters. They suggest that education about the ongoing process of recovery will mitigate the effects of future natural disasters. Including maps, photographs, and statistical analyses, The Indian Ocean Tsunami is a clear and definitive evaluation of the tsunami's impact and the world's response to it.

The 2004 Asian tsunami was the greatest natural disaster in recent times. Almost 230,000 people died. In response, governments in Asia and the broader international community announced large aid programs. The resulting assistance effort was one of the largest humanitarian programs ever organised in the developing world. This book discusses the lessons of the aid effort for disaster protection policy in developing countries.

This book is a unique, transdisciplinary summary of the state of the art of disaster risk reduction (DRR) in Indonesia. It provides a comprehensive overview of disaster risk governance across all levels and multiple actors including diverse perspectives from practitioners and researchers on the challenges and progress of DRR in Indonesia. The book includes novel and emerging topics such as the role of culture, religion, psychology and the media in DRR. It is essential reading for students, researchers, and policy makers seeking to understand the nature and variety of environmental hazards and risk patterns affecting Indonesia. Following the introduction, the book has four main parts of key discussions. Part I presents disaster risk governance from national to local level and its integration into development sectors, Part II focuses on the roles of different actors for DRR, Part III discusses emerging issues in DRR research and practice, and Part IV puts forward variety of methods and studies to measure hazards, risks and community resilience.

*Includes pictures *Includes accounts of the tsunami written by survivors *Includes a bibliography for further reading "Whenever an earthquake or tsunami takes thousands of innocent lives, a shocked world talks of little else." - Anne M. Mulcahy In the Christian world, December 25 is a time of great rejoicing and celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ. It is by far the most festive time of year, marked by parties, church services and giving gifts. It is also a popular vacation time, as families use the breaks given by offices and schools to travel, often to exotic destinations. That is why so many of those who witnessed the Great Tsunami of 2004 were not native to the areas struck but had traveled there to enjoy the sun during the dead of winter. Most of them slept soundly on Christmas night and woke up the following morning with plans to enjoy a fun day playing along white beaches or exploring dense jungles. For many, it was supposed to be the adventure of a lifetime, but for everyone in the region, it would instead become a fight for survival. Around 8:00 a.m. on December 26, a massive earthquake registering a 9.1-9.3 on the Richter Scale struck off of Sumatra, Indonesia, making it the 3rd strongest earthquake ever recorded by seismographs. On top of that, the earthquake shook for nearly 10 minutes and generated incredibly strong tsunami waves, some of which topped out at over 100 feet tall as they crashed inland in places like Thailand, India, and Indonesia. Given the great distances traveled, some of the tsunami waves didn't reach shore until 7 hours after the earthquake, but thanks to the element of surprise, people in the region had virtually no warning of what was coming. With more energy than that generated by every weapon and bomb used during World War II combined, the tsunami waves pulverized entire towns and swept away hundreds of thousands of people across Southeast Asia, in addition to displacing more than a million people. Given how calamitous the events were, a massive outpouring of humanitarian support was sent to the affected areas, and over $10 billion was poured into relief efforts. Not surprisingly, a better tsunami detection system was also designed to prevent against any similar occurrence, even though it's believed that the last similar event in that region took place over 500 years earlier. The 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake and Tsunami: The Story of the Deadliest Natural Disaster of the 21st Century chronicles the incredibly powerful earthquake and the deadly tsunami waves it triggered in Southeast Asia. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about the 2004 earthquake and tsunami like never before, in no time at all.