BANDA ACEH, Indonesia (AP) — Two decades after a catastrophic tsunami destroyed her village, Tria Asnani still cries when she recalls how she lost her mother while trying to escape the giant waves.
Asnani, now a school teacher, was only 17 at the time. Her father, who was a fisherman, never returned home from sea. She doesn’t know how she survived. “I cannot swim. I could only rely on dhikr (Islamic prayer).”
On Dec. 26, 2004, a powerful 9.1-magnitude earthquake off the coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra triggered a tsunami that killed around 230,000 people across a dozen countries, reaching as far as East Africa.
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