In some ways the memories of the tsunami are as fresh and horrific as if it were yesterday. I remember those first stunned minutes after landing at Banda Aceh the day after the disaster, and reeling at the heaps of bodies stacked at the side of the road as we drove into town. A surge of panic shivered through me and I honestly felt that I wasn't going to be able to cope with the scenes unfolding before me. But then the enormity of the situation overwhelmed any fear I had. Before I could think, we were filming and conducting interviews, trying to show the world just how bad it was.
And it was really bad. It was definitely the most distressing and epic disaster I have covered (sadly I've covered a lot since then) and possibly the worst natural catastrophe I will ever witness. It was the sort of event that I will be telling my grandchildren about. An event -that will seem unbelievable when read in history books, like the Great Fire of London or the Black Death.
The UN estimates that some 245,000 people died or are missing as a result of the tsunami. Think about that for a second: almost a quarter of a million people gone-- in a matter of minutes.
But it wasn't just the incomprehensible death toll that makes it out as such a once - in - a - thousand year event. It was the fact that it hit countries as far apart as Kenya, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, India, the Maldives and Myanmar. And the reaction was even more global. Aid poured in from every single country - some $7 billion dollars in all. Nothing compared to the bailout of the banks, but in terms of donations to a humanitarian crisis, it was huge.
The hardest-hit area in the catastrophe was Indonesia's Aceh province. In the dark days after the tsunami, it looked as if a bomb had been detonated in the centre of the main town Banda Aceh. One local conservationist I met in 2004, Mike Griffiths, neatly summed it up, comparing it to the aftermath of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki in World War II.
He told me how much of the town had been reduced to a "level plain of shards". I recently met Mike again in Banda Aceh, -his home for years, and he told me how much has changed since December 2004:
"It's so built up now, it's difficult to find this spot. Behind us is a mosque with a black cupola and that was the clue that guided us to this spot on which we stood five years ago and talked about the damage of the tsunami. >From this same spot we could also see the sea about a kilometer to the left of where I am standing here. Now we can barely see 100 meters because there's been so much reconstruction, everything's been built up both sides of the road."
Among the Aid Agency community, many lessons have been learnt from the reconstruction following the tsunami. Most aid organizations involved feel proud of the sheer amount of work achieved in a relatively short period of time. They were faced with an overwhelming task, complicated by the sheer number of people killed, the loss of many documents relating to land-ownership and the vast quantity of new houses, mosques, shops, hospitals and schools that had been utterly destroyed.
In Aceh, a special government-backed agency, BRR, was set up to oversee the vast rebuilding. The BRR was superseded by the BKRA this year and the two agencies have overseen the spending of $3.2 billion of aid money in Aceh alone. The BKRA still has $600 million to spend, most of which is already allocated.
People were appalled at what they were witnessing one day after Christmas. Andrew Morris from the U.N. children's agency UNICEF, is sure that's why so many people felt compelled to hand over money. "I think it was the timing. A lot of people were celebrating. It was Christmas and I think a lot of people were really, really touched when they saw those pictures. It was phenomenal. It was unprecedented. I think contributions just flooded in from individuals, from companies, from children themselves. At UNICEF, we received $700 million. We know that children in many, many countries themselves got together to raise money. I think the tsunami really touched people's hearts."
In Aceh, aid money from Germany has been used to build a state-of-the-art new hospital, the airport has a new terminal building, and according to the BKRA, there are 363 new bridges, 23 new ports, 1759 new schools, 3781 new mosques, and nearly 70,000 hectares of farmland rehabilitated. And crucially about 150,000 new houses have been rebuilt.
But not all of the houses are up to standards hoped for by the aid agencies. We visited some, which are forlornly empty. The standard of construction is poor, the buildings don't keep out the intense monsoon rains and some weren't even built with a drinking water supply. When we asked the BKRA about some of the problems with new houses, it admitted in some cases standards were not met.
Despite some problems though, the scope and obvious success of the rebuilding is staggering. In many places it's impossible to find a trace of the tsunami.
In Thailand, there are also few physical reminders of the disaster. The tourist industry was keen to clean up and move on as soon as possible. On islands like Koh Phi Phi, it's now business as usual with busy bars, cafes and hotels, and virtually no reminders of the tsunami. This island was badly hit on December 26, yet today the thumping music and jolly backpackers give the island the party atmosphere it had before the disaster. It's the same on Phuket. Hotels like the Kamala Beach Hotel, immortalized in dramatic amateur video, are now rebuilt and expanded. Manager, Wisut Kasayapanand still has painful memories from that day.
"I try not to kind of remember all the details. We try to memorize the good things and forget the bad things. The tsunami brought us tears but it makes us proud of ourselves the way we treated our guests; they were really in a crisis. Now, even in a world economic crisis people get worried, but for us, you know, you never been in a tsunami before. I mean if you survive tsunami and then the rest is not a big deal really."
Fitrie Ani's story encapsulates the horror and hope of the tsunami. She was three months pregnant when she heard neighbors in Banda Aceh screaming: "The sea is rising. The sea is rising!"
I first met Fitrie in the chaotic aftermath of Banda Aceh and watched as she returned to the ruins of her home for the first time since the catastrophe.
It was a pitiful scene. Her home and every building around it had been scoured down to their foundations by the ferocity of the ocean. Fitrie sifted through the rubble, lifting a torn garment that belonged to her grandmother. The dress had been snagged on a piece of masonry but the elderly lady it belonged to wasn't able to hold on. Fitrie's grandmother, husband and eight other relatives were all sucked out to sea.
Fitrie was also unable to fight the swirling vortex of water. She was carried on the currents far out to sea, where she drifted semi-conscious for more than ten hours.
By chance she was plucked to safety by a passing fishing boat.
Five years on, it is remarkable then to find that her neighborhood has been totally rebuilt, and that the baby she was carrying in her womb the last time we met, is now a healthy four and a half year old boy. Zahri is literally a child of the tsunami, carried on the killer wave that, by fluke, spared him and his mother, but took so many others. Fitrie was convinced her baby would be affected.
"I swallowed a lot of that black, warm, and stinky sea water. I thought the baby might get hurt from the water. When I checked, the baby was fine. I don't know how. It's God's will."
Fitrie's new house isn't perfect. It's little more than a wooden shack built with aid money, but at least she has a roof over her head and a new sense of hope. Fitrie has since remarried and has another boy with her second husband, who's a soldier. Like thousands of people here, they have tried to rebuild their shattered lives, as best they can. Fitrie tells me remembering the tsunami is painful -as she lost everything and came so close to death herself. "I'm happy that Zahri is normal. Other kids weren't that lucky. But what makes me sad was that my kid was born without a father."
A story of sudden grief that was replicated millions of times around the Indian Ocean that day, when the sea reared up and swallowed whole cities.
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