Reply #2: the island of Simeulue...

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"On the island of Simeulue, reached by an aid flight late last week, they remember a tsunami of 1907 when the island, not far from the epicentre of last week’s quake, suffered thousands of deaths.

Locals never forgot the disaster and it helped them to survive when they felt the quake on Boxing Day.

“It became part of the folklore that as soon as we feel a quake we must run to high land,” said Darmili, a district administrative leader.

“It was clear that trouble was coming. The force of the quake was so strong we suspected a big tsunami would follow. Our local lore reminds us of the danger we live with every day.”

Although it was hard to judge the extent of the damage on Simeulue, Darmili said that the majority of the island’s 70,000 people had heeded the lore and escaped the waves that followed the quake."