Is the Indian Ocean Ready for Another Mega-Tsunami?

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the devastating 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami. Commemorations are taking place around the region for the estimated 230,000 lives lost in 14 countries affected by the disaster. It saw the largest recorded humanitarian response, mobilizing support from local and international responders.

The tsunami’s destruction focused the world’s attention on the need for sustained action in disaster risk reduction. Since then, progress has been made, but efforts are waning and in some measures are backsliding amid short-termism and an inability to sufficiently integrate disaster reduction into longer-term strategic thinking at the national level.

We need to find the momentum we had after the 2004 tsunami to deliver disaster reduction in the region.

The 2004 Tsunami

On the morning of December 26, 2004 a devastating 9.2 magnitude earthquake occurred 160 kilometers off the coast of North Sumatra, Indonesia at a depth of 30 kilometers. This came after decades of tension released along the Burma and Indo-Australian tectonic plates and caused a large earthquake in two phases. These lasted several minutes over an estimated 1,600 km of fault surface. The seabed rose by several meters over hundreds of kilometers, pushing an estimated 30 cubic meters of water above sea level and triggering a tsunami.

The waves were observed as far away as Mexico, Chile, and the Arctic Circle.

As the wave approached shallower waters, it slowed down, causing its size to increase to an estimated 30 meters high and 200 kilometers wide. It reached Indonesia’s Aceh province 20 minutes after the earthquake, hitting the coastal city of Meulaboh. The wave crashed into the coastline and killed 10,000 residents and destroyed 80 percent of its buildings. It then reached Banda Aceh, home to 250,000 people, where outlying islands caused the tsunami to intensify. Waves of 20 to 35 meters high hit the coastal city and reached 3.5 kilometers inland. The waters reached the second floor of many buildings and claimed an estimated 168,000 lives.

As the wave progressed, it impacted India’s Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Eyewitnesses recounted that they heard cracking and rumbling sounds that came from underwater landslides. Massive undersea landslides triggered by the earthquake saw the formation of waves of up to 15 meters high. As the islands are flat, the tsunami waves had significant impact. Luckily, local communities had an oral tradition that passed down knowledge of previous earthquakes and tsunamis; many in the islands’ community listened to the warning signs and evacuated to higher ground.

However, the Indian Air Force base located along the coast on Car Nicobar was inundated by the tsunami waves, with residential buildings and its hospital reduced almost to rubble. Four oil tankers nearby were displaced 800 meters from the seashore to the air force base’s main gate.

As the tsunami wave continued, it reached Thailand’s Phang Nga and Phuket provinces an hour and a half after the earthquake. It claimed the lives of around 5,400 people, including 2,000 foreign tourists. An estimated 2,500 to 3,000 irregular migrant workers from Myanmar also lost their lives in Thailand. With Aceh bearing the main brunt of the tsunami, the waves that reached the northwestern states of Peninsula Malaysia were likely reflected rather than direct. Still, 52 people died and property damage resulted in thousands of displaced people. 

Mainland India, the Maldives, Myanmar, and Sri Lanka were next affected by the tsunami. India lost 10,800 people. Sri Lanka suffered the second highest casualty rate, with over 35,000 people lost. The Maldives had graduated from the United Nations’ “least developed” category four days before the tsunami. The then-Maldives president, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, said that “nearly two decades of development were washed away” in the tsunami.

The tsunami waves hit countries as far away as the east coast of Africa, including South Africa, Seychelles, Somalia, Tanzania and Kenya.

The devastating tsunami saw the international community respond with the “most generous and immediately funded emergency relief effort ever,” noted Jan Egeland, the U.N.’s emergency response coordinator. It illustrated the impacts that low probability, high impact hazards can have on communities and the ripple effect they can have across the world. It also further underscored the need for a sustained global push to better understand and act to reduce disaster risk, as highlighted in the International Decade for Disaster Reduction from 1989 – 1999.

After the Wave

In the immediate aftermath of the tsunami, to assess the extent of the damage the Indonesian military (TNI) reached out to its counterparts in Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, New Zealand, and the United States. Eventually a total of 16 foreign militaries were part of the international response.

Singapore activated Operation Flying Eagle, its largest humanitarian assistance and disaster relief operation to date, involving 1,500 personnel, ships, helicopters and aircraft. Singapore’s was the first foreign aid to reach Meulaboh and an air bridge was established between Meulaboh, Banda Aceh, and Medan to support the TNI.

The U.S. military launched Operation Unified Assistance to provide humanitarian aid and disaster relief, notably to Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and Thailand. The operation involved over 15,000 U.S. personnel in 30 ships, including the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln. Malaysia sent helicopters and aircraft with nearly 600 personnel. Australia and New Zealand sent multiple assets along with over 1,000 personnel.

The international military response effort also illustrated one of the key geopolitical outcomes of the tsunami: India was a major power in the region, simultaneously mounting a domestic response and also sending relief abroad. Within 12 hours, Indian naval helicopters landed in Colombo with relief supplies, followed the next day by naval vessels arriving in Sri Lanka and the Maldives. India sent a further two hospital ships to Aceh, Indonesia.

During the immediate aftermath of the tsunami, Australia, India, Japan, and the U.S. convened the Tsunami Core Group to informally coordinate relief efforts. Japan and Australia deployed more than 1,000 personnel as well as funding and materials to the effort.

On January 6, 2005 Indonesia convened a Special ASEAN Leaders’ Meeting in Jakarta. The special summit saw ASEAN leaders appeal to the international community to support short-term emergency relief and longer-term reconstruction and rehabilitation efforts. Then-U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan issued a flash appeal for $977 million and each of the 29 countries and international organizations present announced their own specific contributions.

The Tsunami Core Group disbanded in favor of the wider U.N.-led response. But the success of the Tsunami Core Group as an informal diplomatic mechanism between Australia, India, Japan and the U.S. saw it inspire the first iteration of the Quad in 2007, and its later revival in 2017. The foreign ministers have met annually since 2019; the “Quad Leaders Summit” has convened every year starting in 2021.

The U.N. established a financial tracking system for the tsunami response, listing expenditures and contributions for its flash appeal by agency and country. The international community raised in total over $13.5 billion made up of 45 percent government donations, 40 percent private donations, and 15 percent loans and grants.

It was the largest recorded amount funded by private donations for an international response to date. Of the private donations, over 70 percent went to the 10 largest international NGOs at the time.

While government responses to the tsunami relief effort were not the largest ever, it was the most diverse funding ever received, with 99 countries contributing to the humanitarian effort. However, only five governments or regional entities constituted over 50 percent of the funding for the relief effort – the United States, Australia, Germany, the European Union, and Japan.

The tracked money does not account for funds raised internationally and spent locally, so excludes funds like remittances from affected communities’ diaspora. Despite this shortcoming in the data, the mobilization of the international community to support tsunami-affected countries remains one of the largest recorded international disaster response efforts to date.

To support the unprecedented scale of the response effort, Annan appointed former U.S. President Bill Clinton in February 2005 as the U.N. secretary-general’s special envoy for tsunami recovery. Clinton traveled several times to the region and worked to keep the spotlight on the recovery effort. During his two-year mandate, Clinton supported coordination efforts across international financial institutions, national governments, U.N. agencies, international NGOs, and private donors, while promoting transparency and accountability, and encouraged “building back better.”

Such efforts became necessary as the economic impacts of the tsunami became apparent. In Aceh the devastation cost 97 percent of Aceh’s GDP or an estimated $4.45 billion. Yet Indonesia’s national economy still managed to grow 5.9 percent in the first half of 2005 – its strongest national growth rate since the Asian Financial Crisis. The economic impact of the tsunami was incredibly localized to the affected areas.

After the initial emergency response, the international effort turned its attention to recovery and rehabilitation efforts. The vast scope of the international response efforts led to Indonesia and Sri Lanka establishing dedicated agencies – the independent Agency for the Rehabilitation and Reconstruction of Aceh and Nias (BRR), and the Task Force for Rebuilding the Nation (TAFREN), a public-private effort in Sri Lanka. Thailand, India, and the Maldives designated existing government agencies to oversee the ongoing effort. The Maldives initiated an “Adopt an Island” approach that saw the government pair up international efforts with specific islands for recovery and rehabilitation.

The recovery efforts posed a significant coordination challenge for the respective governments. There were some 124 international NGOs and 430 local/national NGOs working on the efforts in 2005 in Indonesia alone.

While money was raised for the humanitarian effort, action on the ground in affected areas faced challenges given pre-existing conflicts in Indonesia (between the Free Aceh Movement and the Indonesia military), as well as in Sri Lanka (between the Tamil Tigers and Sri Lankan government).

The scale of incoming aid itself posed multiple challenges with the diversity of humanitarian actors, many heading to affected areas for the first time. This led to inappropriate provisions, corruption, and capacity issues.

One way these issues were addressed was through the establishment of the BRR, which was granted a degree of flexibility that allowed for faster and more efficient distribution of resources to agencies and projects. The longer-term transition from aid to development after the tsunami illustrated the dual challenges of responding to immediate needs and addressing issues such as poverty, corruption, land ownership and building regulations as well as the civil conflicts.

In Aceh at the end of 2006, local and provincial elections were held as part of the peace process. In Sri Lanka, the civil conflict escalated in 2006, setting back reconstruction efforts in the North and East of the island. While the conflict ended in Aceh after the tsunami, the conflict in Sri Lanka continued until 2009.

The many challenges and opportunities, seized and missed, in both regions in their respective post-conflict development in the intervening years are beyond the scope of this article. What can be said is that the tsunami provided motivation to progress peace talks, but did not guarantee their success.

The humanitarian efforts underway across the region highlighted the mantra to “build back better,” which included not only emergency relief, recovery, and rehabilitation but prevention. These efforts focused on the need to invest in disaster prevention initiatives to reduce the potential for such devastation again.

From Disaster Recovery to Disaster Reduction?

The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami initially refocused the world’s attention on the devastating effects natural hazards can have on communities. Less than a month after the tsunami, in January 2005, the World Conference on Disaster Reduction was held in Kobe, Japan building on global efforts tracing back to 1989. Delegations from nearly 170 countries participated. The meeting highlighted the need for a tsunami early warning system in the Indian Ocean, and this task was picked up by Australia, Indonesia, and India.

By 2006, the three countries, in partnership with the U.N. Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission, established a provisional Indian Ocean Tsunami early warning system. This led to the formation of a network of centers and agencies in Australia, India, and Indonesia by 2012 that aimed to alert communities across the region.

That same year, the early warning system was put to the test. An earthquake in a similar location to the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami was recorded at an 8.4 magnitude. While it did not cause a tsunami, the 2012 earthquake demonstrated that, despite some challenges, the three systems worked well together.

The outcome of the Kobe meeting in 2005 was the Hyogo Framework for Action (2005 – 2015), a global blueprint for disaster reduction efforts to substantially reduce disaster deaths and losses in social, economic, and environmental assets of communities and countries. The Hyogo Framework originated in efforts to make concrete progress on disaster risk reduction through the United Nations under the International Framework for Action for the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction, which started in 1989 and was followed by the Yokohama Strategy and Plan of Action in 1994.

By the time of the conclusion of the Hyogo Framework in 2015, countries met and recognized that their efforts had not led to reduced physical and economic losses. The member states agreed that the focus needed to “shift from protecting social and economic development against external shocks to transforming growth and development for managing risks.”

Global efforts were then directed into developing the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (2015 – 2030) as the successor to the Hyogo Framework. At the mid-term review of the Sendai Framework last year, leaders called for a step-change in its implementation.

Many called for renewed efforts to achieve the necessary progress by 2030, as the current trajectory will fail to achieve the Sendai Framework aims on time. Despite disasters significantly increasing since 2015, short-termism dominates and there is an inability to sufficiently integrate disaster reduction into longer-term strategic thinking at the national level.

Indeed, recent evaluations highlight that countries are not only not on course but they are actually backsliding on their commitments. This is concerning given that climate change is shifting the contours of hazards, such as increasing heatwaves and intensity of typhoons (to name just two examples). We are seeing risk outpace resilience in countries across the region, which will invariably cost lives and livelihoods.

Advancing Regional Cooperation

While the January 6, 2005 Special ASEAN Leaders’ Meeting was the first held after a disaster, it did not signal the beginning of regional disaster-related efforts. Regional efforts stem back to 1971, when ASEAN established a biennial meeting of experts on disasters. This meeting became the ASEAN Committee on Disaster Management (ACDM) in 2003, just ahead of the tsunami, and was the region’s main decision-making body on disaster management. Nevertheless, the events of December 26, 2004 were a significant catalyst that underscored the need for the strengthening of capacity and systems of ASEAN member states.

The tsunami propelled ASEAN leaders to advance a regional disaster governance framework. The ACDM was tasked with the negotiations that led to the ASEAN Agreement on Disaster Management and Emergency Response, signed in July 2005.

The first ASEAN field operation was launched in the aftermath of the 2008 Cyclone Nargis that devastated parts of Myanmar. The ASEAN-Emergency Response and Assessment Team (ASEAN-ERAT) was activated and the ASEAN Humanitarian Task Force for Cyclone Nargis was chaired by then-ASEAN Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan to coordinate response between Myanmar authorities and the international community.

After this effort came the establishment of the ASEAN Coordinating Centre on Humanitarian Assistance on Disaster Management (AHA Centre) in 2011 as the “operational engine” for the agreement that supports an affected state’s engagement with fellow ASEAN members and the wider international community.

As Said Faisal and Adelina Kamal, the first two AHA Centre executive directors, recently noted, “[D]isaster management is one of the few portfolios in ASEAN that has tangibly translated ASEAN solidarity to the ground, dispelling the myth that ASEAN is just a ‘talk shop.’”

The 2008 Cyclone Nargis experience also ushered in a new model of cooperation in the humanitarian system that saw greater collaboration between the United Nations and ASEAN. It eventually led to the ASEAN-U.N. Interoperability Brief covering collaboration between the ASEAN Humanitarian Coordinator and the U.N. Emergency Relief Coordinator both during and between disasters.

After Super Typhoon Haiyan hit the Philippines in 2013, the AHA Centre was deployed to provide its first surge capacity deployment in a major disaster since its establishment.

Subsequent developments in the Philippines catalyzed efforts to develop a more structured locally led disaster management. Yet funding and implementation challenges remain a significant constraint on its potential as a leader in the field.

Despite challenges as a newly established body, the Super Typhoon Haiyan experience for the AHA Centre provided further impetus to regional thinking on disasters that led to the ASEAN Vision 2025 on Disaster Management in 2015 and the ASEAN Declaration on One ASEAN, One Response – Responding as One Inside and Outside the Region in 2016. This consolidated a vision for regional efforts that not only focused on ASEAN efforts at home but extended its disaster experience to the international system.

After the 2018 Sulawesi Triple Disasters – an earthquake, soil liquefaction, and tsunami – ASEAN leadership facilitated cooperation through the AHA Centre, with the center becoming the lynchpin between national and international humanitarian efforts.

The development and hands-on experience of disaster management leadership in ASEAN has provided other sectors with important learning points to imagine the possibilities of their own systems and structures, from pandemics to haze pollution. 

In the absence of sectoral capacity and leadership, the disaster management sector has also been called upon to take on additional responsibilities in new areas such as providing humanitarian assistance to internally displaced people following the Siege of Marawi in 2017. The AHA Centre was tasked by ASEAN leaders to undertake a preliminary needs assessment of the humanitarian situation in Myanmar’s Rakhine State after the orchestrated violence led to displacement of over a million Rohingya into neighboring Bangladesh. ASEAN leaders once again called on the AHA Centre to facilitate humanitarian assistance for people in Myanmar in the ASEAN Five-Point Consensus.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the AHA Centre facilitated the use of regional stockpiles to support ASEAN member state responses. What these varied engagements illustrate is that the on-the-ground experience of the AHA Centre has become widely recognized within the region as an important mechanism in regional cooperation. The developments catalyzed by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami have demonstrated the agency of affected states in a region exposed to natural hazards.

Regional Realities

The aftermath of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami illustrated the importance of militaries in emergency response, as the regional armed forces provided necessary surge capacity amid a humanitarian crisis. Subsequently, in 2005 India hosted initial discussions in New Delhi on the challenges militaries face regarding disaster response. The meeting identified the need for standard operating procedures for foreign military assistance to disaster relief operations in the Asia-Pacific.

Over the next five years, a series of conferences were held to design what became the APC-MADRO (Asia-Pacific Conference on Military Assistance to Disaster Relief Operations) Guidelines, ultimately finalized in 2010. These guidelines on military assistance in disaster relief operations recognized armed forces as a first responder to disasters and outlined the standard procedures for foreign militaries to support affected countries in disaster relief efforts.

In 2014, the inaugural Regional Consultation Group on Humanitarian Civil-Military Coordination in the Asia-Pacific was held in Bangkok. It meets annually to keep the APC-MADRO Guidelines alive and provide a forum for civilians and militaries to engage in disaster preparedness.

These efforts also built upon the ASEAN-U.S. Defense Ministers’ Informal Meeting in 2014 highlighting the need for greater civilian and military engagement in disaster management across the Asia-Pacific. At the meeting, Singapore’s defense minister offered to establish the Changi Regional HADR Coordination Centre the same year to facilitate military-to-military coordination in humanitarian assistance and disaster relief. It recently marked its tenth anniversary.

While there is notable progress on the use of foreign military assets, in many countries in the region the role and mandate of militaries in domestic disaster response efforts continues to be a source of contention.

Since 2004, the Asia-Pacific has witnessed the formalization of national disaster laws and frameworks, albeit with a wide range of implementation challenges. Despite their civilian character, investment in these institutions remains inadequate.

Without an active dialogue over the role and mandate, if any, of militaries in disaster management at home, then reactive measures will dominate and disagreement is inevitable over military engagement in disasters.

This makes dialogue at the regional level all-the-more important to facilitate these discussions as both senders and recipients of disaster assistance in various civil-military combinations. This is, in essence, a knock-on benefit of the Regional Consultative Group on Humanitarian Civil-Military Coordination in the Asia-Pacific.

Even though its focus remains on how foreign military assets engage with national disaster management systems, the domestic implications are clear. As witnessed 20 years ago in the 2004 tsunami response, national militaries are the respective counterparts of foreign militaries.

However, such indirect approaches remain unlikely to address the core issues at home over the role of civilian authorities and militaries at the speed and scale needed in time for future natural hazard events.

The developments over the past 20 years have nevertheless demonstrated improvements in disaster preparedness between civilian organizations and militaries, even if fundamental and structural issues remain.

So What’s Next?

The region is gearing up for the looming deadlines of the ASEAN Vision 2025 on Disaster Management and the Sendai Framework for Action and Sustainable Development Goals in 2030.

As part of regional efforts in 2015, the ASEAN Vision 2025 on Disaster Management was released to guide strategic decision-making at the national and regional levels. It identified three core, but interrelated, pillars in this thinking – institutionalization and communication; partnerships and innovation; and finance and resource mobilization.

In 2021, the ASEAN Disaster Resilience Outlook – the mid-term review – aimed to assess progress but also provide insights into how Southeast Asian countries can advance beyond the goals laid out for 2025 and 2030.

Some of its suggestions include the development of an ASEAN Data Hub for disaggregated data from different sectors and organizations to inform decision making; the establishment of an ASEAN chief risk officer to facilitate longer-term strategies at the regional level; an implementation framework and the initiation of cross-regional partnerships on disasters, such as with the Pacific Islands Forum; as well as a review of civil-military coordination mechanisms.

The greatest challenge for the region remains ensuring that experiences continue to inform decision-making, and that the necessary structural and institutional changes are effectively implemented to empower communities and adapt to the emerging risk landscape.

Through such an effort the region can then provide the global leadership needed through sharing its own successes and challenges in reducing disaster risks and improving emergency response in the Asia-Pacific.

This potential comes with one big caveat. The disaster management activities conducted under the ASEAN banner through the AHA Centre are 10.35 percent funded by ASEAN member states, 86.6 percent funded by dialogue partners and just over 3 percent from other sources in 2023. So, if ASEAN leadership on disaster management is to be taken seriously outside the region, then Southeast Asia, in some combination of government or private-sector funding, also needs to lead in supporting these efforts.

The disaster management experience in the Asia-Pacific – the world’s most disaster-prone region – over the past 20 years has shown that investing in leadership and capabilities both within and between ASEAN member states pays off. Yet it has also highlighted a significant challenge in that the reduction in disaster deaths and damage inspires complacency as other policy areas are deemed more pressing. Without sustained investment and capacity strengthening in disaster management the progress made to date is under threat.