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Dealing with Disaster
The tsunami changed lives in Aceh, but many continue to live by the sea.

THE Baiturrahman Grand Mosque in Banda Aceh is never empty. Although the communal Friday prayers were over, more than a dozen men sat between the mosque's white pillars, reading the Qur'an, praying or just quietly conversing. Out on the terrace, some stood under the roof to get some shade. The mosque's yard is clean, and the grass is well-kept. The mosque's white minaret stands tall. There is no sign that Indonesia's worst natural disaster ever affected this icon of Aceh's provincial capital.

Ten years ago, on December 26, a tectonic earthquake measuring 9.2 on the Richter scale triggered a tsunami which swept over Aceh's west coast. Hundreds of thousands of people died. Tens of thousands of homes, including those around Baiturrahman Mosque, were destroyed. However, the mosque stood tall and unaffected, despite the battering by water, mud and debris. Residents of Banda Aceh flocked there to take cover. "This mosque saved many lives," said Zaidan, a resident of Banda Aceh who accompanied us around the mosque at the end of last October.

That earthquake and tsunami disaster changed life in Aceh. Reconstruction of the infrastructure has been intense over the past 10 years. Economic activity has slowly revived. The city was rebuilt because many areas hit by the tsunami were no longer inhabitable. Roads and public facilities such as schools were reconstructed. In fact, Aceh now has an international airport. The conflict between the government and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM), which broke out in 1976, came to an end. "Something that was unimaginable before that," said Kuntoro Mangkusubroto, former chairman of the Aceh-Nias Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Board (BRR), last November.