I went to Banda Aceh, Indonesia in 2006 to help assess the impact of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami upon the region’s rich cultural heritage. The scale of destruction caused by the tsunami was staggering.
On 29 July 2018, Lombok was struck by a 6.4 magnitude earthquake, killing 20 people. A week later, an even stronger earthquake of magnitude 6.9 devasted the island. Strong aftershocks continued to rock the Indonesian island, quickly transforming the popular tourist paradise into “hell on earth”.
At approximately 9:30pm local time (2:30pm GMT) on the 22 December 2018, a tsunami struck Indonesia’s Sunda Strait, which lies between the islands of Java and Sumatra, claiming over 430 lives. According to Indonesia’s disaster agency there are at least 1,500 injured, over 120 people still missing, and around 12,000 people have been displaced.
On Sunday (29 July 2018), I learnt about the strong 6.4-magnitude (M) earthquake in Lombok, Indonesia. As we have friends living there, I wanted to visit to see what aid we could organise for the people there. So my husband and I went to Lombok with some friends, and we linked up with other humanitarian aid groups to visit the Sembalun area, which is about 1,000 metres above sea level, at the foothills of Mount Rinjani, one of the most scenic volcanoes in the world.
Soputan Volcano in north Sulawesi erupts five days after the neighbouring magnitude-7.5 Palu earthquake – Was the eruption triggered by the earthquake?
On 28 September 2018, central Sulawesi in Indonesia got struck by a powerful earthquake measuring 7.5 in magnitude (M). A tsunami that followed later devastated the city of Palu and the town of Donggala, leaving more than a thousand dead and even more homeless.
