Indonesia commemorated the 10-year anniversary since the 9.1 magnitude quake followed by tsunami slammed into its coastlines on December 26,2004, claiming the lives of 228,000 people. The waves ravaged the villages, stripping vegetation from mountain sizeds and capsizing freighters. An estimated 10 billion dollars worth of damage was recorded at the time.

Ten years on, a special service was held in honor of the victims in Banda Aceh at a large park in the city center that had been inundated by the tsunami a decade earlier. They sang the national anthem of Indonesia and praid in honor of the dead. People wept as they remembered the disaster that changed their lives forever.

Tsunami and Disaster Mitigation Research Center (TDMRC) Head Andi Ekasakya says: “Since 2012, we can not only warn communities within five minutes but we can also tell when a tsunami will hit, at what time, and how high the waves will be. Our recordings how, in fact it was not as much as five minutes, but an average of 4 minutes 47 seconds.”