Sustaining a Transformative Disaster Risk Reduction Strategy: Grandmothers’ Telling and Singing Tsunami Stories for over 100 Years Saving Lives on Simeulue Island

Abstract

As projections about the number and scale of natural hazard events and their impact on human populations grow, increasing attention is being paid to developing effective means for preparing for and mitigating those impacts. At the same time there is an emerging understanding that gradual and incremental changes in disaster risk reduction (DRR) will not adequately meet the future needs of vulnerable populations. Transformational changes have been identified as a necessary requirement to avoid ongoing large-scale losses of life and property and models have been proposed to recalibrate DRR strategies to achieve transformative changes. One cited example of a transformative change in DRR is that of Simeulue Island. Simeulue Island suffered two tsunamis approximately 100 years apart (1907, 2004) with markedly different impacts. This paper looks in detail at the cognitive and developmental mechanisms Simeulue co-opted to sustain the transformational change throughout the 20th century. Information from interviews and observation identified the role of grandmothers have in the effective communication of risk as well as motivating appropriate action to save lives. The possibility of similarly overlooked, local, and pre-existing community capacities for transformative change in DRR is then discussed.

Something Still Remains: Factors Affecting Tsunami Risk Perception on the Coasts Hit by the Reggio Calabria-Messina 1908 Event (Italy)

“…After the tsunami of 26 December 2004, which originated from a large fault in the Indian Ocean near the coast of Sumatra, scholars' attention focused on Simeulue, an island in Aceh district only a few tens of kilometers away from the event's origin area, which despite being exposed to waves more than 30 m high, had a unexpectedly low number of deaths. The surprising explanation for the responsiveness on the part of local people lies in the cultural memory of a tsunami that occurred in 1907 and the measures needed to escape the wave, reproduced through the generations by means of a nursery rhyme (the song of the Smong, i.e., tsunami) taught first in schools, later incorporated into Simeulue's musical folklore [13,17,[147][148][149].…”

Syair Smong dalam Nyanyian Warisan Penyelamatan Diri dari Bencana Tsunami Aceh Simeulue

“…Warisan kearifan lokal smong pada masyarakat Semeulue yang disampaikan secara turun temurun dari orang tua kepada generasi berikutnya, telah memberikan kemandirian (Sutton et al, 2020) berkaitan dengan keadaan lokasi masyarakat simeulue yang merupakan daerah kepulauan. Peristiwa gempa yang terjadi pada 26 Desember 2004 berhasil menyadarkan orang Simeulue dari bencana besar.…”