Legacy of an Indonesian tsunami
The devastating Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 created hundreds of orphans in one hard-hit region of Indonesia, forcing many teens to grow up quickly and leave school for work or marriage and many younger girls to forgo school to take up roles around the home. The findings stemmed from five annual follow-up surveys of tsunami survivors by a team led by Elizabeth Frankenberg, a professor of public policy and sociology at Duke University. Frankenberg presented the surveys’ results Monday at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies. Frankenberg was introduced by center Director Lisa Berkman, the Thomas Cabot Professor of Public Policy and of Epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health, who called Frankenberg’s work groundbreaking. The tsunami was nearly 100 feet high in some areas, scouring the coastline and depositing enormous mounds of debris miles inland. The tsunami was spawned by the 9.3 magnitude Sumatra-Andaman earthquake, one of the...