Tsunami, 20 years on: A disaster, then some found hope

It was Mahyuddin's mother who pestered him to go out on Sunday morning, 20 years ago.

- Rebecca Ratcliffe

It was Mahyuddin's mother who pestered him to go out on Sunday morning, 20 years ago. Dozens of relatives were visiting their small, coastal village in Indonesia for a wedding party, but a powerful earthquake had struck just before 8am. Buildings in some areas had collapsed. He should go and check on his employer's office, to see if they needed help, his mother said.

As he drove into town, he found chaos and panic. The road was heavy with traffic: cars, motorbikes, trucks, all rushing in the same direction. People were running on foot, shouting that water was coming.

"I had to do something to save myself," he says. "I decided to leave my motorbike because there wasn't enough space, and I ran."

He ended up at an intersection. First, a shallow sheet of water spread rapidly across the main road. It rose rapidly into a powerful flood, dark in colour and carrying a stream of debris: home furnishings, strips of wood, anything the wave had swallowed in its path. People clambered onto a structure at the centre of the intersection, climbed trees and lamp-posts to survive. Bodies were visible in the flowing water.

Mahyuddin managed to cling to safety. His village, close to the beach and hit by an even greater force, was completely destroyed.

He returned the next day to the coastal area to search for his relatives. It was there that he met Ema Listyana.

Her family gave him food, and they searched through bodies together.

A year later they married.

The Indian Ocean tsunami, which crashed into Aceh province in Indonesia 20 years ago today, caused devastation unlike any other in recorded history.

The waves, which towered as high as 30 metres, killed 227,899 people across 15 countries.