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Wednesday, Aug 22, 2007
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Indonesia plans tsunami museum

BANDA ACEH: Indonesia will build a $ 7.5 million tsunami museum in Aceh province to commemorate the 216,000 people who died when towering waves crashed into Asian coastlines nearly three years ago, an architect said on Tuesday.

Architect Ridwan Kamil won a contest to design the museum, which will look like a traditional wooden house on stilts, said competition judge Kamal Arief. Names of the victims will be inscribed on the wall inside a towering chimney-like installation, said Mr. Arief, an architect.

Location

The museum will be built atop a hill on a 10,000 sq m plot of land in provincial capital Banda Aceh, the area hardest hit in the December 26, 2004, tsunami accounting for nearly two-thirds of all deaths in the disaster.

Evacuation point

Many residents fled to the hill during the 2004 tsunami and Mr. Arief said it will be used as an evacuation point if there is another tsunami in the area.

The museum will display the culture and history of Aceh people including information on three decades of fighting between Indonesian troops and separatist rebels that only ended after the tsunami killed 167,000 people in the province and left a half-million others homeless, Mr. Arief said.

The museum will feature scientific descriptions and simulations showing the process of earthquakes and tsunami, and will show images of Aceh before and after the disaster, he said.

‘Ring of fire’

Indonesia is located in the so-called Pacific ‘Ring of Fire,’ an arc of volcanoes and fault lines encircling the Pacific Basin, and earthquakes — which can trigger tsunami — are common in the area. — AP

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