By Karishma Vaswani
BBC News, Banda Aceh, Indonesia
**Eighteen countries in the Indian Ocean are taking part in an exercise to evaluate the response of the region’s tsunami early warning systems.**The test will simulate the earthquake that struck off the northwest coast of Sumatra in 2004.
That killed a quarter of a million people, over half of them in the Indonesian province of Aceh.
The international tsunami drill is being held on World Disaster Reduction Day.
In Aceh, the memories of the destructive tsunami of 2004 are still fresh in people’s minds.
Newly built hotels and homes are a reminder of the devastation that took place when the 9.2-magnitude earthquake created a huge wave that crashed on to the shores of Aceh, travelling inland, destroying everything in its wake.
Five years later, efforts are being made to ensure that if another catastrophe of that sort were to hit Indonesia and other countries in the Indian Ocean rim, people will be prepared.
Eighteen countries in the Indian Ocean including Indonesia are taking part in an exercise to evaluate the response of not just emergency teams but also people to an impending disaster.
Indonesia’s government wants to deliver tsunami alerts to its citizens within five minutes of an underwater earthquake.
But experts say that will not be achieved until the country has installed all of the necessary equipment.
Much of the money for the equipment has come from international donors, including Germany, Japan and China.
The test will determine whether the Indonesian authorities have spent that money wisely, and whether the local population is prepared for another catastrophe in the future.