Leupung

Leupung -- also spelled ''"Leupueng"'', is a

district A district is a type of administrative division that, in some countries, is managed by the local government. Across the world, areas known as "districts" vary greatly in size, spanning regions or counties, several municipalities, subdivisions o ...

Aceh Besar Great Aceh Regency ( id, Kabupaten Aceh Besar) is a regency of the Indonesian province of Aceh. The regency covers an area of 2,903.49 square kilometres and had a population of 351,418 at the 2010 Census and 405,535 at the 2020 Census; the offic ...

regency, close to the city of

Banda Aceh Banda Aceh ( Acehnese: ''Banda Acèh'', Jawoë: كوتا بند اچيه) is the capital and largest city in the province of Aceh, Indonesia. It is located on the island of Sumatra and has an elevation of . The city covers an area of and had ...

, the capital of the ''special territory'' of

Aceh Aceh ( ), officially the Aceh Province ( ace, Nanggroë Acèh; id, Provinsi Aceh) is the westernmost province of Indonesia. It is located on the northernmost of Sumatra island, with Banda Aceh being its capital and largest city. Granted a s ...

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

, on the island of

Sumatra Sumatra is one of the Sunda Islands of western Indonesia. It is the largest island that is fully within Indonesian territory, as well as the sixth-largest island in the world at 473,481 km2 (182,812 mi.2), not including adjacent i ...

. Leupung is located at 5'31" North latitude and 95'15" East longitude at an elevation of 33 m. The population in 2004 was approximately 10,000; the district has been obliterated by the

tsunami A tsunami ( ; from ja, 津波, lit=harbour wave, ) is a series of waves in a water body caused by the displacement of a large volume of water, generally in an ocean or a large lake. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and other underwater explo ...

resulting from the

2004 Indian Ocean earthquake An earthquake and a tsunami, known as the Boxing Day Tsunami and, by the scientific community, the Sumatra–Andaman earthquake, occurred at 07:58:53 local time (UTC+7) on 26 December 2004, with an epicentre off the west coast of northern Suma ...

, being one of the towns closest to the earthquake's

epicenter The epicenter, epicentre () or epicentrum in seismology is the point on the Earth's surface directly above a hypocenter or focus, the point where an earthquake or an underground explosion originates. Surface damage Before the instrumental pe ...

. According to early reports ''nothing vertical and square-edged is left'

and the estimated number of survivors is 200–700. There were six villages in Leupung: Deah, Meunasah Mesjid, Meunasah Bak U, Lamseunia, Pulot, and Layeun. Among these six villages, Pulot and Layeuen have more people that survived the tsunami. These villages were situated on higher land and had easy access to even higher places for them to evacuate to, while people in the other villages did not get close and lacked easy access to a safer place. Higher death toll in these four villages also resulted from the way the people understood and reacted to this natural disaster. Oral tradition after the tsunami has it that after the tremendous earthquake, people had already reached the conclusion that it was to be the end of the world. Therefore, many people decided that there was no longer time to escape, it was time just to beg for the mercy of God. That is why, as many people told, there were many people who did not survive in this area. {{coord, 5, 23, N, 95, 15, E, region:ID_type:city, display=title Populated places in Aceh