While families will never be rebuilt nor the trauma forgotten, interviews with survivors across the devastated coastlines of Thailand, India, Sri Lanka and Indonesia show how lives have been transformed. Displaced people who struggled for months without jobs and lived in tents or shacks saw an improvement in living standards in the following years.

Global Grief

Television images of the devastation stirred donations from people across the world. Grief was shared from Sweden to Australia, among dozens of countries that had citizens swept away from beach resorts in Thailand, the Maldives and Sri Lanka. About $14 billion poured into the stricken areas from governments, agencies and individual donors, money that helped provide tens of thousands of homes, often better built than before, in villages and towns that had been razed.

Half the aid went to Aceh, the first place to be hit by the world's biggest earthquake in 40 years. The force of the moving ocean floor displaced a giant body of water, unleashing waves that rippled across the sea at the speed of a jetliner before crashing into shore. More than 600,000 houses were destroyed and 3,400 schools damaged, along with dozens of bridges and 22 ports, in Aceh and the neighboring island of Nias.

Aceh's economy, which had been booming faster than the whole Indonesian nation's, shrank for four of the next five years. It's grown above 2.7% annually since 2010, reaping the benefits of a 2005 peace deal between separatists and the government that came in the wake of the tragedy.

Loud Whir

Much of the infrastructure was restored within four years, according to Kuntoro Mangkusubroto, head of the reconstruction and rehabilitation agency in Aceh and Nias after the tsunami.

“Everything that was planned to be built has already been built: houses, roads, bridges, airports, ports, schools, community health centers,” he said. “A lot of measurements of human life are improving.”

Only the memories don't get better.

Thirty minutes after he was awoken by the shaking of his house a decade ago, Erwan, then 24, heard a loud whir.

“The water is rising,” yelled his uncle, racing back from the beach. The sea was a kilometer away from his home in Lampuuk on the island of Sumatra, but the young man still ran, sprinting toward the next village alongside his mother and two sisters.

He wasn't quick enough. A wall of water as black as asphalt engulfed him, dragging him under. Erwan thought death was certain. He swam furiously to reach the surface, where a bed was floating by. He clung to it and drifted two kilometers to Lhamlom village. His mom, dad and sisters weren't so lucky.

Wall of Water

A day later, as Erwan stepped over countless bodies, piles of rubble that were once homes and boats tossed ashore, he found his brother, Ichsan, who was on his way home from fleeing to the mountains. The brothers, in tears, hugged each other close.

“We asked each other about our parents, but neither of us knew,” Ichsan said.

For days, they relied on the kindness of people from inland villages for food and water. There was no power, they were isolated, disease was rampant.

“I had my wallet but with no money in it,” said Erwan, who slept in a tent outside the mosque while Ichsan stayed in Lhamlom. “I didn't work.”

“We were just thinking how to move on,” recalled Ichsan, now 28, as he sat on a bench beside his brother. “We have no parents, we have no family. How will our future be? The house is no longer there.”

Home Building

Gradually, aid began to arrive. In 2007, Erwan and Ichsan moved into a 110-square-meter two-room house, one of 700 built in the reconstructed village by the Turkish Red Crescent Society. The Indonesian Red Cross also gave Erwan 3 million rupiah ($240) that he spent on furnishings.

“When I got the house, there was no furniture,” Erwan said. “I said to myself: I have to work, find some money so life can get back to normal.” Both brothers are single.

NGOs offered training and finance for survivors, including Ichsan, to start businesses. He now also works for a turtle conservation project, a concept he says was introduced by aid agencies. Before, turtles and eggs were taken and sold for easy money.

“With programs from foreign NGOs on agriculture, people got knowledge,” he said.

Mangkusubroto, the reconstruction head, said his biggest challenge was coordinating 900 domestic and foreign institutions, including the World Bank, and preventing corruption on the ground.

Still Vulnerable

Unemployment and rising crime remain a concern in the province, which is subject to shariah, or Islamic, law following the peace deal, he said.

“Aceh still has a long way to go to recover from the conflict and the tsunami disaster,” said John McCarthy, from the Australian National University's Crawford School of Public Policy, who has made study trips there. “While the aid programs have reconstructed roads and infrastructure, many villagers still face seasonal food shortages and households in many parts of Aceh remain vulnerable.”

A peace dividend has also aided Sri Lanka, where giant waves smashed into the east coast about an hour and a half after the subterranean earthquake. An end to decades-long conflict with rebels in 2009 helped the country's per-capita GDP rise to $3,280 in 2013 from $1,242 in 2005.

Vikum Samanpriya was 11 years old when he saw a neighbor's house “collapse like a cardboard box” in Thotagamuwa village in Hikkaduwa.

Coconut Tree

Unable to swim, he clutched a door as water flooded the home of his uncle, who grabbed him just as the door broke off its hinge. They were swept toward a coconut tree, which they latched on to. The uncle kept the boy's head above water. His mother, Ramani Premalatha, and 5-year-old brother also survived.

Even though they lost their home and their shop, aid arrived quickly and no one went hungry, said Premalatha, 54. “People from other areas came in trucks and distributed food,” she said. “The army and police helped. We were given nets, tents.” The government gave the family 250,000 rupees ($1,904) to build a house, and cement structures replaced the lean-to buildings many had lived in.

Reconstructed villages along the coast bear the names of sponsors: two-story homes paid for by the Victoria state government in Australia, a cluster funded by by accounting firm KPMG, and another by London-based insurer Aviva Plc. More than 1,000 dwellings were built using donations, according to Sampath Viraj, general manager of Foundation of Goodness, a charity connected to leading cricketers.

Swimming Pool

For years Premalatha took her kids to school, scared to let them go. Now, her fears are less and she talks proudly about how the area is much more developed. Thotagamuwa school was rebuilt by the Italian government and has playgrounds, while a local swimming pool means children can learn to swim, potentially saving their lives if waves wash ashore again.

Hotels and guest houses along the coast have been rebuilt as Sri Lanka's tourism industry has become a key driver of its economy, forecast to grow 7.8% this year. The more than 1.3 million visitors this year are almost three times the level of 2008, a low.

Tourism was devastated in Thailand too, where more than 8,000 were counted missing or dead, including many foreigners in the beach resorts of Krabi and Phuket.

The army built cinder block houses within seven months in Ban Nam Khem, in the badly hit province of Phang Nga. Hotels and the faith of tourists took longer to restore. Tourist arrivals slumped 72% in 2005, to 831,000, from almost 3 million the year before. They have risen steadily since and overseas arrivals alone jumped 60% last year to 1.3 million.

Palm Oil

Phang Nga Governor Prayoon Rattanasenee said it took three to four years for the province — which relies on rubber, palm oil and tourism — to recover economically, and slightly longer for people to cope with the trauma.

Prayoon, banking on rising tourism, says he's seeking investors to build more hotels on the 50-kilometer stretch of white sand.

One of those who already has is Yutthana Sanguannam, whose Palm Andaman Beach Resort abutted the beach in Khao Lak, south of Ban Nam Khem. Its 79 rooms were fully booked when the tsunami swept in, reducing his resort to rubble and killing guests and staff. He said he doesn't know how many died as records were lost.

He had left the hotel on Christmas night to drive 90 minutes to his Phuket home. The next day, when he heard news of flooding across the coastline, he rushed back. Reaching the top of a hill that overlooks Khao Lak and seeing the resorts leveled by the waves, he said he had one thought: “Disaster.”

Paying Debt

After the initial days of searching for loved ones, employees and guests, Yutthana's thoughts turned to rebuilding.

“At the time there was an outstanding loan,” he recalled. “I had a debt to pay.”

He received some money from the government's tsunami recovery fund and hired a contractor to start work on the first 79 rooms of the new Ramada Khao Lak Resort. It opened on the same site in January 2007. In 2011, the second phase was completed, adding another 37 rooms.

“I think this kind of situation will happen just once in your lifetime, so I just rebuilt it,” Yutthana said. “I made it bigger, better quality and better service. Everything.”

He has taken some safety precautions: His new resort is built in a modern style with flat roofs, allowing guests to evacuate there in case another wave hits. It also has its own tsunami alarm system and clearly marked evacuation routes.

Hair Salon

The resort town now has 6,000 to 6,500 rooms, up from about 4,000 before the tsunami. Local villagers too have rebounded. In Ban Nam Khem, Wanchai Chitcharoen, 57, invested in renovating his new army-built home so that it houses his wife's hair salon in front and their living quarters in the back.

“I'm very proud, in 10 years we have come so far,” he said, as he sat in front of the lime green building. “The tsunami brought people down to their knees. To witness that horror and have your community left bare naked, you learn that no one can live alone. In a way the tsunami has made us a stronger community.”

For many around the Indian Ocean, rebuilding homes was easier than repairing the psychological scars of losing loved ones. Thangamma Anbuselvam, 37, lost her 10-year-old daughter and her mother-in-law when the waters came to Vailankanni, Nagapattinam district, in southern India's Tamil Nadu province. They were among the more than 6,000 killed. The family's home was demolished.

Public Faucet

Her husband turned to drink to deal with the pain, she said, frittering away aid money as they lived in a tent for three years. When they got a new home 800 meters from the sea, it leaked. That was fixed. But fresh water still comes from a public faucet that sometimes runs dry.

Her hopes are vested in her son, Shiva, whom she found with scratches and bruises many hours after the tsunami hit. She insisted he go to school and the boy, now in 11th grade, has persuaded his father to give up drinking and once again go fishing.

“I don't want my son to do anything relating to the sea, but he only wants to work in a ship,” Thangamma, dressed in a magenta and blue sari, said as she helped repair a stall made of dried coconut leaves from which the family sells fried fish, octopus and crabs. “I'm leaving it to him to decide what he wants to do. In a way we do not fear death. We are inured to it after seeing dead bodies all around.”

Outdoor Functions

As Thangamma and her family have found, aid money hasn't been able to deal with longstanding problems afflicting some poor coastal communities. In the nearby village of Saamandham Pettai, residents said they were moved to an area without proper drainage.

Residents of the 340 houses have to defecate in fields, while women must take baths in the open because there is no water inside their homes, said Paramaguru Pakkiri, 32, who lost his father to the tsunami.

“We're asked to pay 5,000 rupees for each household to get water in our homes,” said Pakkiri. “We can't afford that.”

An underground drainage system in the town will start operating in the next two to three months. said T. Munusamy, the top government official in Nagapattinam. Residents will have to pay a deposit to get water supply connected inside their homes.

In Lampuuk, where Ichsan and Erwan have rebuilt their lives, many people have returned to normal with traditional jobs as fishermen and farmers. Some have even gotten rich.

“But life is no longer the same, because families are no longer complete,” Ichsan said.

–With assistance from Asantha Sirimanne and Anusha Ondaatjie in Colombo, Subramaniam Sharma in New Delhi, Sharon Chen in Singapore and Supunnabul Suwannakij in Bangkok.

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