Indian Ocean Tsunami

By Lizzy Cottam

Background… The Indian Ocean Tsunami happened on December the 26th

(Boxing Day) 2004 and affected lots of countries. The worst hit were Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India and Thailand.

I’m going to focus this presentation on the country hit worst, Indonesia, especially Aceh, a little fishing village in Indonesia.

Aceh was hit by destruction in the Tsunami.

Map of Indonesia and Earthquake epicentre that caused the Tsunami.

Where the Tsunami happened, Indonesia.

Epicentre of the Earthquake which caused the tsunami.

Here you can see why Indonesia was the worst hit as it is right on the epicentre of the earthquake that caused the whole tsunami to happen.

Affected Areas

Immediate Effects… The houses along the coast, bridges and roads were all damaged.

Buildings and structures were damaged by the direct pressure from tsunami waves, the receding waves then dragged rubbish along the coast. Many of the affected structures consisted of non engineered, poorly constructed houses belonging to the fishing community.

The tsunami had a total damage in Indonesia is estimated at $4.5 billion-$5 billion. This is almost equal to the entire GDP of Aceh (according to a damage assessment prepared and released by the Indonesian Government, World Bank, ADB, and other development partners in January)

Lots of people lost family members and friends, homes, businesses, work places, livestock and crops. These have all affected Indonesia’s development.

Secondary and Long term effects…

A fishing village in Aceh, Indonesia had every home in their village and most of the land washed away. New quake-proof homes were built on stilts, but now almost half could be torn down to make way for a coastal highway by the US government.

Even when the 118 homes in the village were being designed and built, plans were already being laid for the road to be built from Banda Aceh to Meulaboh when people didn’t even want it. The road could see the demolition of almost 50 of the houses that were paid for by £750,000 of money donated by Christian Aid in the UK and Lutheran Churches in the US.

Cont.

The village had had 219 of the 928 locals killed and they were just beginning to piece their lives back together when the US government planned to build this road, meaning the villagers may have to face homelessness again.

Why was the Tsunami so devastating?

In Indonesia alone, there is an estimate of 167,736 deaths, of which 130,738 were confirmed. 37,063 went missing and more than 500,000 people were without homes.

In Banda Aceh, lots of fishing boats were lost, so without them, the villagers couldn’t carry on their livelihood and fish for a living. This means that no one was earning money when they needed it most.

Some villages, after being hit, just ceased to exist and were completely destroyed.

As in any natural or unnatural disaster, families were split up and separated. They had to cope with the deaths of their loved ones.

How did India being an LEDC make the situation worse?

They had to rely on other countries for aid because they couldn’t afford all the aid themselves.

Even paying for just some of the aid meant India had less money to spend on its development.

Being less developed, the proper healthcare and skills that were needed weren’t available.

With so many people dead, less work could be done, less people were getting paid and less money was being paid into the already less developed country.

How did the Tsunami effect Indonesia’s development?

There are lots of reasons why the Tsunami affected Indonesia’s development:

Aid was coming in to help those in need, so Indonesia wasn’t taking in much money- it was probably spending more to fix the damage.

With the economy low, the development in Indonesia would definitely be very restricted until the damage of the Tsunami was all taken care of because all money they had spare would’ve been going to help the infrastructure, healthcare and basic necessities.

But, the economy is expected to rise by 5.9% in 2006.

Thank you!