TWENTY years since the Boxing Day Tsunami: The Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) looks back on the legacy of its biggest appeal, with the impact of the UK public’s donations still being felt today.
This Boxing Day marks 20 years since a 9.1 magnitude earthquake struck the coast of northern Sumatra, triggering a massive tsunami in the Indian Ocean that devastated millions of lives and thousands of miles of coastline. The images broadcast shocked the world,
and the earthquake and tsunami were described as the worst natural disaster in modern times.
The UK public rallied together in response to the crisis, raising £10 million for the DEC’s Tsunami Earthquake Appeal in the first day alone, and breaking a Guinness World Record for the most money raised online in 24 hours. The incredible outpouring of generosity
led to the appeal raising an extraordinary £392 million in total, which adjusted for inflation, would be the DEC’s biggest appeal in its 60-year history, worth around £690 million today.
The impact of those donations remains, with many people in the affected countries still living in homes, studying in classrooms, and using tools and facilities provided the DEC’s member charities.
School teacher Junaedi remembers the day the tsunami swept away his village in Aceh, Indonesia.
“I was woken up by the earthquake. The clock on the wall was swinging and the furniture doors were opening – when it quieted down my parents and I went out, we were grateful that our wooden house was still standing.
“A few minutes later we heard shouts.. and then a warning that the sea water was rising. We saw a wave in the distance that was higher than the mangrove trees, and we started running for higher ground.
“That day, we don’t really know what happened. What I know is I jumped on top of a rock and realized as soon as the waters receded that my parents who were stood beside me were gone.”
He ran up a hill with his siblings and stayed in the jungle for many hours, unaware how widespread the damage was.
“There was a miracle, we don’t know what was behind it. But I managed to get through it without a scratch. That is what motivated me to replace my parents’ role for my siblings,” he says. The family were supported in a temporary shelter by DEC member charity
World Vision, before Junaedi and his wife were able to move into a newly built home constructed by the charity.
DEC member charities and their local partners were able to provide millions of people in Indonesia, India, Myanmar, the Maldives, Sri Lanka, Somalia and Thailand with immediate relief following the disaster, as well as longer term support as they rebuilt their
lives and livelihoods. The majority of DEC funding was spent on building homes for survivors in the worst impacted areas of Indonesia, India and Sri Lanka.
Appeal funds also provided sanitation facilities, clean water and healthcare, as well as loans to fishermen and women so they could get back to work, training to business owners, tools to farmers and education to children. Many are still benefitting from the
training and supplies they were provided today.
Marlina, 46, is head of the community health centre in Lampisang, Indonesia.
“When the tsunami hit, all the health centres were destroyed”. She explains how after the tsunami, they were able to rebuild health facilities with help from humanitarian agencies like DEC charity Islamic Relief.
“When the NGOs came and helped, the health centre was built again in its original place – and finally, there were two community district health centres, one as an inpatient health centre, and the other one for outpatients.”
Alongside the new health centres, training programmes were set up for midwives and healthcare workers, as well as a variety of other courses, such as how to properly treat wounds.
“There are many trainings and methods that we learned after the tsunami, which we didn’t have before,” she says.
Many lessons were learned from co-ordinating such a complex response, and the tsunami played a key role in transforming the way humanitarian agencies respond to large-scale crises today. It highlighted a need for stronger and more co-ordinated disaster preparedness,
well-built infrastructure that can withstand natural disasters, and a focus on putting affected communities at the heart of all disaster recovery.
Some examples of how DEC member agencies have adapted the way they respond to disasters over the past 20 years include:
Cash grants are now often considered the most effective way to support communities when materials are available locally. This allows people to be self–reliant and enables them to buy what they need more quickly, supporting local economies.
There is now much greater investment in disaster risk reduction, and ensuring affected communities are always left better prepared to withstand future crises.
Aid agencies have worked hard to ensure local people can now play a much greater role in leading disaster responses. This allows communities to receive the different kinds of support they need at the right time, and to rebuild more effectively for the future.
Madara Hettiarachchi, the DEC’s Director of Programmes and Accountability, was working with DEC member charity World Vision and was in Sri Lanka visiting family when the tsunami hit. Following the disaster, she became part of World Vision’s response team
in the country. She said:
“It’s hard to describe what we saw. The scale of destruction, the lives turned upside down and the stories we heard from survivors were absolutely harrowing. That experience shaped my understanding of what humanitarian response really means. The lessons
we learned still guide my work today. Over the past 20 years, the humanitarian sector has come a long way. Communities are no longer just passive recipients of aid, they’re active participants, helping shape how responses are designed and delivered. Back in
the early 2000s, accountability often meant reporting to donors, not the people we were helping. Today, most organisations have dedicated staff focused on ensuring that affected communities can give feedback and stay informed, so they can play a greater role
in the recovery process. The DEC has played a big role in this evolution, and the lessons of the past 20 years have shown us how far we’ve come in making humanitarian aid more accountable, flexible, and community centred.”
Gareth Owen OBE, DEC member charity Save the Children’s Humanitarian Director, who led the charity’s response in Sri Lanka, said:
“The scale of the humanitarian challenge in the aftermath of the 2004 tsunami remains unmatched to this day, and it’s thanks to the generosity of the British public that Save the Children and other agencies were able to rise to that challenge in the
way we did. The response was a huge logistical feat: from mobilising resources to provide emergency food, water and medical supplies, to restoring livelihoods and setting up temporary learning centres. Whilst the initial focus was on providing urgent support
wherever it was needed most, we know that a quality emergency response lays the foundations for long-term recovery and real lasting change. That legacy still shapes the countries that were worst affected by the tsunami, to this day.”
Richard Blewitt, Executive Director of International at DEC member charity the British Red Cross, who worked alongside National Societies responding to the disaster 20 years ago, said:
“The sheer scale of the destruction caused by the Indian Ocean Tsunami was unprecedented, and so was our response. In the months and years after the disaster, we focussed our attention on supporting people to be better prepared to
deal with future crises. Working alongside local responders and communities, we honoured the memories of those that lost their lives by helping stricken communities build back better. We know that being better prepared would have saved
lives, and this disaster became a pivotal moment for disaster law. Led by the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent, a network of laws, policies and plans, to determine who does what, when and how, in response to a
disaster, was created. These laws ranged from allowing aid to be delivered fast and effectively, but also safely. They have now moved on to include preparedness, as well as response and recovery.”
Donations to current DEC appeals can be made at dec.org.uk or
by calling 0370 60 60 610
