I keep on praying God to reunite with my dead children in dream, one day. So far, it never happened. More than an hour into our interview, 44-year-old Armansiah Nyong is on the verge of tears. His new family, wife and two young kids, listening respectfully without saying a word, immediately sense the seriousness of the moment. The silence outside their new house is broken only by gusts of wind. He quickly regains his composure. The tsunami will always be in my mind he adds, in a sort of whisper. At least once a month, I have nightmares of waves submerging me.
At 7.59am on December 26, 2004, a 9.1-magnitude earthquake, whose epicentre was located 160km off the west coast of Sumatra, triggered the most powerful tsunami ever recorded. The quake unleashed a series of deadly waves up to 30 metres high that devastated the shores of 15 countries along the Indian Ocean, killing an estimated 280,000 people and displacing more than 1.6 million. With 80 per cent of the deaths, the Indonesian province of Aceh was the hardest hit. Here, 800 kilometres of coastline were destroyed, killing entire families and wiping out thousands of villages in a matter of seconds. Just like many others in this city on the western tip of Sumatra, Nyong is a survivor. He has faced death and his account of the events of that day are offered up in chilling detail and accuracy.
It was a Sunday morning and Nyong was serving as a rescue coastguard on the beach of Ulee Lheue, a Banda Aceh coastal neighbourhood that would later be dubbed the ground zero of the tsunami for the total destruction it experienced. The day was sunny and the beach was already packed with people walking and exercising. With his house only 200 metres away from the beach, Nyong had briefly gone home to check on his pregnant wife, leaving his two children, who were 2 and 6, with a friend. A few minutes before 8am, a powerful earthquake struck the city.
It was very strong, my wife and I had to lie on the ground, he remembers. When it ended, there were a lot of cracks on the house walls. Alarmed, Nyong went back to the beach, but was unable to find his children. He noticed that the ocean water had receded for more than one kilometre, leaving shoals of dying fish on a stretch of sand as wide as the eye could see. People were running into the dry ocean to collect the fish, hurrying others to join, Nyong continues, the tone of his voice almost anticipating the catastrophe. I didn’t go. It looked weird to me, as if something bad was about to happen.
A few minutes later, Nyong spotted a gigantic body of white foam on the horizon. The water was approaching the coastline at 800 kilometres per hour, followed by several deafening booms. When he realised he had to run away, it was too late. Nyong was knocked down by a huge mass of water while still close to the coastline. The second wave completely submerged him. When the third and biggest one hit Ulee Lheue, the high fronds of coconut palms were the only visible things. A strong man, Nyong managed to swim on top of the wave and grab an empty plastic tank to float. The scene around him was apocalyptic: the city had turned into sea, its blackened waters carrying any kind of debris, from cars to pieces of roofs and corpses. The water was rushing towards the town centre, destroying everything on its way. At a certain point I bumped into a woman who was being carried by the stream, he continues, gesturing heavily as if he was still inside the water. I tried to hold her head under my arm, but the flow was so strong it swallowed her.
Abu Dhabi media