Veteran aid worker Alex Snary speaks to Michael Morrah about the disaster that claimed 250,000 lives. Video / Ben Dickens
Alex Snary, a veteran aid worker, witnessed the devastation of the Boxing Day tsunami, which killed at least 250,000 people 20 years ago today.
He led efforts in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, assessing destruction and providing immediate relief.
Snary worked for relief charity World Vision, which built more than 12,000 homes and schools, with $26 million raised in New Zealand for aid.
When Alex Snary arrived in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in the aftermath of the Boxing Day tsunami, children sat silently with their backs to the water.
“They didn’t want to see the sea. They were silent. The horror of what they’d been through was too much.”
The veteran aidworker was deployed to the island group between Thailand and India the day after the tsunami hit 20 years ago today.
Relief worker Alex Snary was sent to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands between India and Thailand when the Boxing Day tsunami hit 20 years ago. Photo / Ben Dickens
The enormity of the disaster was on a scale never seen before.
Generated by a colossal 9.1 magnitude earthquake centred off Indonesia’s Banda Aceh, tsunami waves up to 30m high decimated coastal areas in 14 countries.
Scientists from the US Geological Survey would later make some alarming comparisons - the tsunami released energy equivalent to 23,000 atomic bombs.
It was 7.59am when the quake hit. Residents in coastal communities witnessed waters recede – an unusual sight that left fish stranded on reefs and led some to investigate the newly created shoreline. Soon after the water disappeared, huge waves returned inundating homes and businesses. In Banda Aceh, a 2600-tonne barge, the Apung 1, was swept 5km inland. The vessel remains there today as a monument to what happened.
Snary was working for World Vision when he was deployed to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, which are close to Banda Aceh and the quake’s epicentre.
Volunteers work alongside soldiers to clear bodies after the Boxing Day tsunami in Banda Aceh in 2004.
He spent 20 years with the charity and travelled all over the world amid war, suffering and natural disasters. He was country director in Jerusalem, West Bank and Gaza when children were killed by Israeli airstrikes in 2014; he spent time in Mongolia amid a deadly flu outbreak in 2009 and worked in Afghanistan, South Sudan and all over the Pacific.
But his time on the ground in the aftermath of the Boxing Day tsunami was particularly hard to fathom.
For Snary, the way the water transformed the landscape, and how it suddenly upended the lives of so many was inconceivable. It was the worst tsunami disaster in history, killing at least a quarter of a million people. Although Snary reckons the true death toll will never be known.
“The tsunami was on a scale that was off the charts. I saw areas where bodies were stacked up like firewood.”
‘Like a rubbish dump’
Tsunami destruction at Khao Lak in Thailand after the Boxing Day tsunami hit. Photo / Brett Phibbs
After touching down in the isolated island group, the first phase of the response for Snary and his team was to carry out an assessment of the destruction and determine the immediate needs of locals.
He was taken to one of the main villages – not that he was aware he’d arrived.
“I asked the guys; how much longer until we get to the actual village? And they said, what do you mean? This is the village.”
The sickly-sweet smell of death permeated the air, and the wreckage was so immense, Snary thought he must have been passing through a rubbish dump.
“We were in the centre square of the village, and it was just total devastation. There was nothing that survived.”
Debris, including wood, concrete and household appliances, was strewn across the land resembling a “village rubbish dump,” Snary said. Fishing boats were on rooftops.
Wreckage left behind in Banda Aceh following the devastating Boxing Day tsunami 20 years ago.
And in the ruins, he met people who had lost everything.
One man’s story – a Nicobari local who’d been evacuated to an emergency camp in the neighbouring Andaman Islands – remains etched in his mind.
His parents, wife and one of his daughters were killed when the tsunami hit. The man, who previously owned a shop, had his surviving daughter and his lungi - a colourful skirt similar to a sarong. That was all.
“One day you’ve got this complete family unit, and a successful business, and then the next day it’s all gone. I remember this guy said to me, ‘Alex, I’ve lost everything except for my one girl. And I can’t afford to lose my faith. That’s the one thing I have remaining in my life.‘”
The power of the human spirit
Fourteen countries were impacted by the Boxing Day tsunami generated by a massive undersea earthquake. Photo / Chris Skelton
Amid scenes of such impossible loss and misery, Snary learned a lot about the strength of humanity.
Normality didn’t resume immediately. But over the weeks after the tsunami hit, he witnessed small shelters going up, rudimentary roadside stalls started selling sticks of chewing gum, and there was a renewed sense of camaraderie.
He puts this down in part to the generosity of those who donated to relief efforts and people’s religious beliefs but also to the sheer grit of humankind and what he thinks is our innate ability not to surrender.
“There is something within us that refuses to give up no matter how hard it gets.”
After days of mental health support from Snary and his team, children who were too scared to look at the water when he arrived, eventually started running, laughing and playing without inhibition.
Workers construct new buildings in Phang Nga District in Thailand's south, after the region was hit hard in 2004. Photo/ Brett Phibbs
“So we saw the beginnings of recovery, of course, that’s helped a lot by the kind of interventions that we can bring.”
Initially, such interventions included meeting basic survival needs, like distributing food, water, clothing and fuel for cooking.
Eventually, World Vision’s global team built more than 12,000 permanent homes and dozens of schools across disaster-hit regions.
Fifty-six thousand mangroves were replanted to strengthen coastal areas.
In New Zealand alone, more than $26m was raised by various humanitarian groups to help communities in need, which Snary said was critical.
“This massive outpouring of generosity across nations like New Zealand enabled us to get in quickly and mitigate some of the worst impact and to literally rebuild when there was nothing left. It’s the only time I’ve ever worked where money was not the restricting factor.”
Michael Morrah is a senior investigative reporter/team leader at the Herald. He won the best coverage of a major news event at the 2024 Voyager NZ Media Awards and has twice been named reporter of the year. He has been a broadcast journalist for 20 years and joined the Herald’svideo team in July 2024.
