Indonesian authorities on Monday opened a tsunami museum on the province of Aceh as part of what it has called the process of recovery from the disaster. The government said the monument would also serve as an education for future generations to understand better the events.
Serving as both a memorial to the nearly quarter of a million people who lost their lives in the December 26, 2004 tsunami and also an emergency shelter should the province ever experience again such a disaster, the opening of the memorial comes as aid agencies begin to wind down their reconstruction work on Aceh.
Red Cross
A statement released on Feb. 23 by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said aid agencies will have built 55,000 houses by December 2009 for homeless survivors of the tsunami, by which time it intended to end its work.
"Almost all major construction programs are due to be completed by the end of 2009, when about 90 per cent of funding will have been spent," said the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies statement.
Disaster Proceeds
The giant building in Banda Aceh was built with aid money provided by the Aceh Reconstruction Fund and commemorates the dead with photos, collected stories of survivors and a simulation of the massive underwater earthquake which caused the disaster. It also records the tremendous outpouring of aid money supplied by governments, businesses and individuals throughout the world which raised more than $13 billion to feed and clothe survivors and begin the long process of reconstruction and recovery.
Controversy
However the project has attracted controversy in Aceh where an estimated 700 families are still housed in temporary barracks. The families are dismissive of the tsunami museum saying the available funds should have been directed to housing for them.
"They should be taking care of us first," said Anisah Tahir, 50, whose family have been living in such temporary accommodation in the provincial capital, Banda Aceh. "We need a decent place to live and sleep," she said in a report by the Straits Times.
People's Needs Respected
However the man behind the project, Eddy Purwanto, denied the money should have spent on the remaining homeless families.
Speaking to the BBC Purwant admitted that, while the museum could never have been considered while most of the families were still to be rehoused, he said that now this had happened the museum was what the people wanted, a memorial of the tragedy and an emergency evacuation center.
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