A visitor of the Kamphuan Memorial Tsunami Museum looks at the photographs and charts explaining how tsunamis are created and how people can prepare for future tsunami alerts

Kamphuan Memorial Tsunami Museum opens in Ranong Province

Friday, May 04, 2007

Scores of local residents attended the opening of Asia’s first community-based tsunami education museum in Ranong province last week.

The Kamphuan Memorial Tsunami Museum, housed in the Tambon Kamphuan Community Learning Center, focuses on the December 26, 2004 tsunami that devastated five nearby fishing villages and tells how the area’s 5,000 residents responded to the disaster and are now rebuilding their lives. The museum, created by tsunami expert Walter C. Dudley of the University of Hawaii, uses photographs, charts and interactive computer displays to explain how tsunamis are created and how people can prepare for future tsunami alerts.

"This small museum serves as a living memorial by educating residents and visitors about the tsunami risk and how to protect themselves from future tsunamis. There can be no greater tribute to those lives lost than to save lives in the future," said Dr. Dudley, who has been making regular visits to the five Suksamran District communities since the tsunami claimed 105 residents' lives.

The names of the missing and dead villagers are posted in the museum, which features videotaped interviews with survivors from Ban Talae Nok, Ban Praphat and Ban Tub Nua recounting their experiences and the lessons learned as a result. Among them is Marisa Khunpakdee, one of three students in her class to survive the tsunami.

"This is a good opportunity for a community to have a facility like this," said Suksamran District Police Major Colonel Chinnawat Premsanga, who officiated the museum’s ribbon cutting ceremony. "Some foreigners recognized the receding waves were a sign of a tsunami, but we didn’t. This museum provides the education that was lacking here."

The tsunami museum occupies a ground-floor room in the Tambon Kamphuan Community Learning Center, a two-story meeting hall and resource center that was built earlier this year with funds from the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Coca-Cola Company Thailand. The building also houses a meeting room and a computer center with high-speed Internet connections for school education programs.

The community center and meeting hall are part of the Post-Tsunami Sustainable Livelihoods Program, a USAID-funded program to rebuild the five area communities’ economies and give residents additional skills and resources for recovery.

FURTHER READING

• Post-Tsunami Sustainable Coastal Livelihoods Program (546 KB PDF)

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