‘If we die, we die together’: 20 years after the Boxing Day tsunami, are we better prepared?

Abdul Rahem, who survived the 2004 tsunami but lost his parents and three siblings. His fishing village of Lam Awe in Ujung Pancu, Aceh, now has a warning system and evacuation plan. Photograph: Riska Munawarah/the Guardian Photograph: Riska Munawarah/The Guardian

It was just before 8am on Sunday 26 December 2004 when the earthquake struck. Abdul Rahem, 47, a fisher, was strolling along the beach, enjoying the morning breeze near to his home in Lam Awe, a sleepy fishing village on the coast of Aceh in Indonesia. He retreated to paddy fields when the violent shaking and swinging stopped. But it wasn’t until he heard the cries of neighbours that he realised something was seriously wrong. People were shouting: “The water is coming.”

Rahem raced home to get his elderly father, and supported him as they tried to flee along the broken road, which had been twisted and torn by the quake. His father urged him to go ahead and leave him, but Rahem refused. “I said, ‘No, no, no, if we die, we die together.’”