Nine-year-old Intan was swept away in the Boxing Day tsunami. She clung to a dead body to stay alive

On the morning of Sunday, December 26, 2004, nine-year-old Intan Afriati was watching cartoons with her family as usual. Suddenly, she felt the ground beneath her begin to shake. It was a day she says she will never forget.

“I was at home with my mum, my aunt, my older sister and my brother,” she told 9news.com.au. “Everything was normal until I suddenly felt a strong shake coming from the floor.” Neighbors began flooding into her home, and the scene quickly became chaotic. Then, she heard an explosion. “I heard people shouting, ‘The water is rising, the water is rising.’ I didn’t know what to do, I just ran, trying to save myself,” she said.

A tsunami had struck her city of Banda Aceh in Indonesia. It was triggered by a 9.1 magnitude earthquake about 250km away. The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration estimates the waves reached 51 meters high in her province. Afriati lost consciousness. “When I woke up, I found myself in the water, holding onto the body of a tsunami victim who was floating with me,” she said. “I was so scared, but the only thing I could think about was keeping my head above the water. I had to survive.”

Afriati was trapped in the water, but she spotted a refrigerator nearby. She swam to it and found food inside. She ate to fight off the hunger until she came across another survivor, who helped her reach the shore safely. Once she realized she was safe, Afriati assumed her family was gone. “My heart was broken. I felt completely alone, like an orphan. The sadness was so profound that I can’t describe it,” she said. Afriati was one of hundreds of children who were either lost or orphaned by the disaster.

Organizations, emergency services and experts from around the world were airlifted in to help with rescue and recovery efforts. One of them was NSW Police forensic specialist Peter Baines, who was called to neighboring Thailand to help identify bodies. There, he met 32 children who had been orphaned by the disaster and were living in tents. “I realised I couldn’t change what had happened, the fact they’d lost their parents, but there was the ability to change what could happen now,” he told 9news.com.au.

Baines established his charity, Hands Across the Water, to help disadvantaged children and communities in Thailand. The number of children needing help quickly grew to 100, and it continues to grow. UNICEF child protection chief Roberto Benes was also in Aceh at the time. He says there was little time to consider his own feelings when each day was long, busy and urgent. “The entire city of Banda Aceh was flattened, and aside from a few buildings, only the Grand Mosque still stood proudly in the rubble,” he told 9news.com.au. “After I arrived, sadness was a recurring feeling because all around us was death and destruction, and we knew that almost everyone we met and saw in Aceh had lost some family member or loved one.”

Benes spent three years in the province helping reunite 390 of about 3000 registered missing children with their families. He says it was the “most profound and impactful experience” of his 26-year career. Afriati was one of the lucky children. She received a call about a month after the tsunami to say UNICEF had found her mother. “It felt like a dream – a dream that would disappear if I opened my eyes,” she said. “I was so grateful at that moment and cried in my mother’s arms. For me, it was proof that Allah still loved me and brought my mother back into my life.”

Now 29, Afriati is a married mother of two, and pregnant with her third child. “I hope my children learn from my experience: the power of hope and prayer was what kept me going when I was swept away by the disaster,” she said. “Hope helped me survive, and prayer brought me back to my family. Life is never easy, but I believe that as long as we have hope, there is always a way to survive and move forward.”

But for those children who were never reunited with their families, the pain of not having family continues to affect them. “The kids who came to us as young children are now in their 20s and starting to have their own children,” Baines said. “What they don’t have is the extended family that can help them navigate life as adults, as parents. That is the real gap that we are seeing in this generation of children, the feeling of loss of extended family is still deeply felt by them.” “The kids look happy, but that doesn’t replace the fact they are alone in the world, having lost loved ones, lost grandparents, lost parents.”