Indian Ocean tsunami - Aceh

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 31 December 2024

⏱️ 11 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

An earthquake off the coast of Indonesia on 26 December 2004, triggered a tsunami which cost the lives of an estimated 230,000 people around the Indian Ocean. It was one of the largest earthquakes ever recorded. Dendy Montgomery was living in the city of Banda Aceh in Indonesia which was laid to waste by the disaster. He spoke to Rebecca Kesby in 2013.

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(Photo: A man walks amongst through rubble in Banda Aceh, Indonesia. Credit: BAY ISMOYO/AFP via Getty Images)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Before you listen to this BBC podcast, I'd like to quickly tell you about some others.
0:05.1	My name's Andy Martin and I'm the editor of a team of podcast producers at the BBC in Northern Ireland.
0:11.3	It's a job I really love because we get to tell the stories that really matter to people here,
0:16.2	but which also resonate and apply to listeners around the world.
0:19.6	And because the team is such a diverse range of skills and strengths,
0:23.0	we have trained journalists, people who love digging through archives,
0:26.6	we've got drama and even comedy experts.
0:28.9	We really can do those stories justice.
0:31.5	So if you like this podcast, head to BBC Sounds
0:34.2	where you'll find plenty more fascinating stories from all around the UK.
0:44.6	Hello and welcome to the Witness History podcast from the BBC World Service. It's been 20 years since the devastating Boxing Day tsunami killed an estimated 230,000 people around the Indian Ocean.
1:02.7	In 2013, Rebecca Kesby spoke to a survivor of the Indonesian province of Ache.
1:09.3	I remember everything.
1:13.4	It's not easy to forget, actually.
1:18.3	Dendi Montgomery is a freelance cameraman in the city of Banda Aceh.
1:21.6	When the earthquake strikes at about 8 o'clock in the morning,
1:24.6	it's like nothing he's ever experienced before.
1:29.8	Actually, I'm in the bathroom, but everything starts shaking.
1:35.7	I can see the wall of my bathrooms going crazy, going right, left.
1:42.2	So I'm just like I'm hurry to wearing again my clothes and try to jump out from my house.
1:46.9	We already think that this is the end of days, this is the end of the world.
1:51.8	It's kind of like really noisy on that time, because all the building, like, I'm shaking.
	...

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