Library damage resulting from the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake

On December 26, the massive 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake struck off the northwest coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra.

Libraries on the eastern coast of Sri Lanka and the northern province of Aceh on Sumatra were most severely affected by the disaster.

[1] The Asian Development Bank reports extensive damage to schools in the Indian states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu.

Twenty three staff members were killed, including the library's director, Bachtiar Azis, who is listed as missing along with his family.

A collection of books received under legal deposit and housed on the second floor was left undisturbed and survived the disaster and looting intact.

A team from the National Library of Indonesia visiting in January 2005 was able to salvage only three books and one sheet of the genealogy of the Muslim kings of Aceh.

Due to the efforts of a team of conservators from Japan and archivists from the National Archives in Jakarta, many of these land register documents were preserved.

Due to the mosque's central location and importance to the community, a concerted effort was made to clear and repair this complex of buildings immediately after the tsunami.

[6] The library of the Agricultural Information Institute of Banda Aceh was inundated with water from the tsunami but its physical structure remained intact.

[6][13] The Library and Museum of the Ali Hasymy Educational Foundation survived intact as the tsunami did not reach this area of Banda Aceh.

Libraries across the country were damaged, and it is estimated that 1.2 million volumes of books and other reading materials were destroyed in the disaster.

[19] Several libraries were used as refuge centres or hospitals in the aftermath of the tsunami, and surviving furniture and collections suffered as a result.

[22] Many of these libraries were attached to Buddhist temples and contained valuable collections of palm leaf manuscripts and documents relating to Ayurveda, the Indian medical tradition adopted in ancient Sri Lanka.

[19] The National Maritime Museum in Galle lost 90 percent of its collection, mostly artifacts salvaged from underwater wrecks and archaeology sites.

The Maritime Archaeology Unit of the Central Cultural Fund was also severely damaged, resulting in the loss of artifacts from an 18th-century Dutch shipwreck that were eventually to be donated to a museum.