The Indian Ocean Boxing Day Tsunami, twenty years on   

The Indian Ocean disaster of 2004 remains the biggest natural disaster of this century. Twenty years on, Red Cross staff remember the unprecedented event that claimed so many lives

At 07.59am local time on Boxing Day 2004, a major earthquake off the Western Coast of Sumatra, Indonesia, triggered a series of deadly tsunamis in the Indian Ocean that would go on to kill and injure hundreds of thousands of people and affect millions more.    

Twenty years on, it remains the biggest natural disaster seen this century. More than 230,000 people were killed, hundreds of thousands were injured, and a further 2.3 million were impacted across at least 15 countries.     

As news of the disaster was broadcast on television stations worldwide, people across the globe watched in horror as lives, homes and livelihoods were swept away from seaside villages and coastal resorts.  

 

Countries impacted by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami

The huge waves caused by the underwater earthquake devastated much of Thailand’s 400km western coastline, while also reaching as far west as Tanzania. 

In Indonesia, tens of thousands of people died, largely in the outlying parts of Aceh provinces. 

In Sri Lanka, thousands were killed and injured, while one million were forced from their homes, with at least 200,000 left homeless. 

The death toll includes those killed as far away as Somalia, where 300 people died.

In Kenya, an early tsunami alert issued by the authorities and the Red Cross helped minimise loss of life. 

The biggest response in the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement's history

In the hours, days and weeks afterwards, an unprecedented local and global response was mounted. The local National Societies of the countries affected by the tsunami launched the largest relief operation in the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement’s history. 

Carrying out search and rescue, relief distribution and health services including first aid and psychosocial support, 22,000 local Red Cross and Red Crescent volunteers and hundreds of international staff from over 40 countries joined the response. 

In the first three years following the disaster, more than 18 million people were supported by Red Cross and Red Crescent teams. 

In the UK, the British Red Cross launched one of its biggest international appeals to date, the Asia Earthquake and Flood Appeal, and supported over 2,600 British nationals caught up in the disaster.

Our Disaster Fund continues to be there for people when the worst happens, providing urgent relief in the aftermath of a disaster.      

 

Coordinating responses to the disaster was key

Dr Mahesh Gunasekara was starting a new role as a director of the Sri Lanka Red Cross at the time of the disaster. 

When his work began, he remembers feeling overwhelmed by the scale of the challenge ahead of him. They had between 50 and 60 staff members, at a time when 80 per cent of the coastal belt had been affected. 

“We had two key challenges: our team was very small, and now we had 26 partners ready to support,” he says. “We needed to rapidly agree how to work together to have the most impact and save the most lives. Coordinating our teams in the right way was paramount.” 

Providing psychosocial support to people traumatised by disaster

Dr Sarah Davidson, now head of psychosocial and mental health at the British Red Cross, was in a voluntary role as vice chairman of the board of trustees in 2004. A clinical psychologist by profession, she flew to Thailand to lead the British Red Cross’s approach to psychosocial support. 

As well as physical loss and injury, thousands of people had suffered devastating trauma. Dr Davidson’s team in Thailand consisted of 14 volunteers who were available around the clock.  

“There was one family I worked with who had lost seven members of their immediate family in a car that was swept away,” she recalls. “One of their daughters was critically ill and we supported the family until she died ten days to two weeks later, the eighth member of that family to die.”

There was one family I worked with who had lost seven members of their immediate family in a car that was swept away.

_{Dr Sarah Davidson, head of psychosocial and mental health}

Inma Lopez is director of programmes and partnerships at the British Red Cross. In December 2004, she had been with the organisation for two months, as a desk officer for South Asia. She cut her holiday to Spain short after seeing the news on television, and returned to London to help coordinate relief efforts. 

“I knew it was going to be one of the biggest disasters we have ever seen, because of the scale of the destruction and how wide the tsunami was,” she recalls. 

The UN and partner organisations including the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement knew that it would be crucial to coordinate if they were to support as many people as possible. 

“It was a mammoth job because the International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC) was in charge of contacting every single one of the national societies [involved] and doing a needs assessment,” says Inma.  

One outcome of the emergency was that it led to the development of a new aid coordination system that has helped support people ever since. 

“We really wanted to ‘Build Back Better,’” says David Pepiatt, who was working in Geneva for IFRC in 2004. “That was one of our biggest challenges, developing the most effective strategy and approach to achieve long- lasting impact - it wasn't about arriving with prefabricated housing or solutions from the outside. We had to think, how do we work in partnership with local communities to ensure people can have a sustainable livelihood and rebuild homes and structures that will endure future extreme events?” 

How do we work in partnership with local communities to ensure people can have a sustainable livelihood and rebuild homes and structures that will endure future extreme events?

_{David Pepiatt, director of humanitarian cash assistance}

Disaster preparedness saves lives

The work included investing in disaster prevention and preparedness, building sustainable housing and hospitals, and providing cash grants for people to rebuild livelihoods lost to the disaster. 

The wider movement, including the British Red Cross, also supported local national Red Cross and Red Crescent societies to recover from the disaster themselves. 

“We did all sorts of things that were designed to be as sustainable as possible,” says Richard Blewitt, who was also based in Geneva with IFRC at the time and is now the British Red Cross’s executive director for international. “For example, we supported the building of tsunami-proof houses in the Maldives, which is different to the temporary, emergency shelter that is often used to protect people in the shorter-term after a disaster hits.”

The value of preparedness was made painfully clear... a lot of lives could have been saved if early warning systems were in place.

_{Inma Lopez, director of programmes and partnerships, British Red Cross}

The biggest lesson learned was the importance of being prepared for a disaster like the one that unfolded on 26th December 2004, something that informs the Red Cross and Red Cross Movement’s approach to emergencies to this day.

“The value of preparedness was made painfully clear,” says Inma. “A lot of lives could have been saved if early warning systems were in place, if people knew where to go, and if those shelters were prepared in advance.” 

Inma says that these lessons must never be forgotten, particularly as the impact of climate change continues to be seen around the world.   

“It's a big priority for organisations like the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement to continue to invest and to advocate for preparing for disasters, both at government and infrastructure level and at a community level,” she says.

“We know climate change means extreme weather such as more flooding and stronger hurricanes, cyclones and typhoons are more likely and more frequent. Being prepared for these is vital.”  

 

• Be prepared: what to do before, during and after an emergency