Introduction

When Aceh was hit by an earthquake followed by a devastating tsunami in 2004, the government of Indonesia introduced a master plan as the basis for the rehabilitation and reconstruction efforts in Aceh to create a post-disaster resilient community. Spatial planning policies and participatory planning processes were adopted during the reconstruction. Buffer zone and infrastructure development, as well as other mitigation efforts, were designed. Community-based village plans were adopted and implemented in all of the affected areas.

However, almost a decade after the tsunami, the cities that were destroyed by the tsunami in 2004 were revived at the same sites as before the tsunami. Plans to relocate the communities to a safer place almost did not happen. Plans to rebuild spaces that are more resilient to disaster were not achieved either. An earthquake of 7.9 on the Richter scale in April 2012 proved the failure of the spatial-based disaster mitigation in Aceh. People were running around frantically, not knowing where to go. The Early Warning System did not work; evacuation routes and shelters were not used properly.

On the other hand, the speed of the reconstruction process in Aceh received a lot of praise. It was considered as having been done in a much faster way than the reconstruction process in other disaster-affected areas in the world, such as New Orleans, USA (Taufiqurrachman, 2006), and Sendai, Japan. In Aceh, three years after the tsunami, most of the victims of the tsunami had been resettled. The economy of the city of Banda Aceh was recovered quickly, even exceeding the conditions prior to the tsunami. The population of Banda Aceh was also increased rapidly. After being hit by the tsunami, the population of Banda Aceh decreased from 265,098 in 2004 to 177,881 in 2005, but began to increase again in 2006 and finally achieved 228,562 people in 2011 (see Figure 28).

While the reconstruction process in Sendai-Tohoku was criticised for its slowness and had to deal with a population decline in the affected areas, three years after the tsunami, almost all damaged municipalities have just completed examining and designing their recovery plan according to their circumstances. They are taking the time to plan carefully to make sure that the cities hit by the tsunami will be resilient against future tsunamis.