I NEED SOME OF HIS LUCK.....Japan tsunami: Aceh man who also survived Sendai wave

When the huge earthquake and tsunami hit Japan earlier this month, the disaster brought back painful memories for the people of Aceh

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The Indonesian province bore the brunt of the huge Asian tsunami in 2004. Of the 220,000 people who died, 170,000 of them were in Aceh.
"When I saw what happened in Japan, it looked exactly the same as what happened here," said Sofian, a 55-year-old man whose wife and two children were among those who lost their lives.
"The water looked just the same. It was dirty, and it carried all sorts of things in it," he added, like cars, masonry and even ships.
It was the first time many Acehnese had actually seen what a giant tsunami looks like. Many of those who survived were too busy trying to escape to have time to look behind them to see what was coming.
And while there are plenty of gruesome images from the aftermath of the Aceh tsunami - swollen corpses littering the streets, villages that were completely flattened - there is hardly any footage of the wall of water that came barrelling on to the shore.
'God saved me' One Acehnese man, in particular, had cause to relive the whole experience. After surviving the tsunami in Aceh, Zahrul Fuadi was then caught up in the disaster in Japan, making him perhaps unique in surviving two of the biggest tsunamis in recent history.

Zahrul Fuadi was on the third floor of a building in Sendai when the mega-quake struck

In the Aceh disaster, he and his family only escaped in time by piling on to a small motorbike and riding up to the hills.
The motorbike is still in pride of place, just outside his house in the suburbs of the provincial capital Banda Aceh.
"God saved me with this motorcycle, and I intend to keep this for all of my life," he said.
In the months after the Aceh disaster, Mr Fuadi, 39, moved to a university in Sendai, in northern Japan, to study for a PhD. He admits that part of the reason for his move was to get away from the carnage.
He was still in Sendai earlier this month - it was one of the areas worst hit by the Japanese tsunami.
"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.
His university building is far enough away from the coast that he did not have to flee the oncoming wave this time, but in sub-zero temperatures, with a small baby and no electricity or water, he decided to take his wife and three children to an evacuation centre, from where they soon returned to Aceh.