On the island of Simeulue in Indonesia, an old woman was telling a story to her grandchildren. “Once upon a time,” she began, “there was a little girl named Kiro. Kiro lived in our village a long time ago—before you were born, before your parents were born, even before I was born.”
One day Kiro was in her house, helping her mother in the kitchen. Suddenly the ground began to shake. It shook and shook. It shook so hard that Kiro and her mother couldn’t stand up, and they fell to the floor. All around them, dishes and pots were falling from the shelves and crashing to the floor. Finally, the shaking stopped. Kiro and her mother got up and walked out of their house.
“Then what happened, Grandma?” the children asked, although they knew what happened next. They had heard the story many times before.
“Kiro looked toward the beach,” the grandmother continued, “and she saw something she had never seen before. All the water was leaving the beach. It was going out toward the sea. Where there once had been a narrow beach, there was a wide beach. Beautiful, colorful fish were lying all over the sand. Some people were picking up the fish and putting them in baskets. Other people were standing on the beach looking out at the water. But Kiro remembered the story her grandmother had told her. So she yelled to the people.”
Here the grandmother paused. “Do you remember what Kiro yelled?” she asked her grandchildren. “Run! Semong!” the children answered. “That’s right,” said the woman. “Kiro shouted, ‘Run! Semong!’ Do you remember what a semong is?” “A big wave!” the children answered. “Yes,” the old woman said. “A very big wave—bigger than a boy, bigger than a girl, bigger than a house, bigger than a palm tree.”
She continued. “People put down their baskets of fish. They picked up their children. They ran to the hills behind our village. Then the semong came. A wall of water crashed on the shore. But all the people were safe because they were standing on the hills.”
Why was the old woman telling her grandchildren this story? She was warning them. In 1907, a tsunami—a giant wave—had hit their island, and many people had died. She wanted the children to be ready if another tsunami came.
Another tsunami did come to Simeulue. On the morning of December 26, 2004, an earthquake in the Indian Ocean created huge waves. The waves came first to Simeulue, the island closest to the earthquake.
A 33‑year‑old man named Suhardin, who lived on the coast of Simeulue, told a reporter about his experience. He said his grandmother had told him stories about the semong. But he didn’t think about those stories when he felt the earthquake, because nothing had happened after a quake three years earlier. Then a man ran past him yelling, “Semong! Semong!” Suhardin thought about his grandmother and climbed one of the hills behind his village.
When he got to the top of the hill, hundreds of people were already there, and more were climbing the steep path. Some were helping older people; some were carrying small children. Before long, everyone in the village was on top of the hill, looking out toward the sea. For thirty minutes, nothing happened. Then the water along the coast rushed out to sea. After that, the first wave came: a wall of water about 10 meters high crashed on the shore below and took the whole village out to sea.
The 2004 tsunami hit fourteen countries, and more than 280,000 people died. But on Simeulue, an island of about 75,000 people, only seven died. Why did so many people on Simeulue survive? They survived for two reasons. First, Simeulue’s hills are close to the coast, so people could run to safety. Second, they remembered the stories the elders told about the semong—stories that warned them to run to the hills after an earthquake.
The people of Simeulue hope another tsunami never comes to their island. But just in case, they will tell their grandchildren the story of the semong. Someday the story could save their grandchildren’s lives, just as the story saved theirs.