9.0 Richter Scale - 7 years after ...
2004, December 26 - As many as 200.000 lives were wiped out within minutes when a giant tsunami hit Aceh's west coast on Sumatra; ten times the figure of the recent tsunami that stroke Japan in February 2011. It took some days till the world public could grasp the devastating situation in Banda Aceh, as a long-lasting civil war between the central government and members of the Free Aceh Movement had escalated the years before and made it a non-go-zone for foreigners. When I arrived end of February in the province of North Sumatra to coordinate on site Caritas Austria's aid efforts for the people on Nias Island, just off " fireline " along the western coast of Sumatra, I felt the island somehow escaped the worst of the tsunami's deadly destruction. But a few weeks in, a second powerful underwater earthquake struck Nias on Easter weekend 2005, causing not only the loss of additional lives but indeed destroying many buildings in its capital Gunung Sitoli, as