A visit to this beautifully designed, hard-hitting museum commences with a walk through a dark, dripping tunnel that symbolises the 2004 tsunami waves. This is followed by a powerful set of images of the devastation projected from tombstone-like receptacles, and a circular chamber engraved with the names of the lost. Upstairs a very graphic short film is shown, along with photographs of loss, displacement, rebuilding, hopefulness and reunited families.
Other displays explain how earthquakes and tsunamis are created and how Aceh’s landscape was altered by the disaster (look out for the ‘before’ and ‘after’ scale models of the city).