Zahrul Fuadi, of Aceh, Indonesia, managed to survive the brutal 2004 tsunami that killed more than 220,000 — only to live through Japan’s Sendai earthquake and tsunami earlier this month. It seems that in the months after the 2004 tsunami, Fuadi moved to Sendai, Japan, to study for a Ph.D. He was in Sendai earlier this month when the earthquake and subsequent tsunami hit. “I was on the third floor attending a seminar when the earthquake came. Suddenly I felt a shock, and then the shock continued. I suddenly remembered the earthquake in 2004 — this shock lasted a long time too, and I thought a tsunami might come,” he said. Luckily, Fuadi and his wife and three children weren’t trapped in the water, but they did have to contend with living without electricity or water in subzero temperatures. So days after the disaster, he and his family returned to Aceh. Fuadi is rather Zen about his double near-death experiences. “Any place in the world has its own risk of disaster. If you go into the road, a car could strike you there is always danger everywhere,” he said. “I’ve survived two huge disasters. Not many people have done that.”
