When Jakarta-based photographer Jonathan Perugia was sent to Banda Aceh in the aftermath of the tsunami, he found notices plastered everywhere – images in black-and-white and in colour, alongside pleas to help find the missing. Looking out from these forlorn photocopies were snapshots of people smiling, posing in their Sunday best, unaware of what was to come.

This heartbreaking series of portraits, collected by Jonathan in the weeks after the disaster, is a reminder of the human cost of the tsunami. Up to 200,000 people in Indonesia, mainly in Banda Aceh, died within minutes – a tragedy so cruel and overwhelming that it stretches our comprehension.

Like the notices posted on Manhattan buildings after 9/11 or the desperate requests for information pinned up near King’s Cross following the July 2005 bombings in London, these portraits are testimony to survivors’ grief for the missing.

Jonathan, a 39-year-old Londoner, moved to Jakarta after the popular uprising that overthrew President Suharto in 1998 to work as a news and documentary photographer for Associated Press. He freelances throughout the region and shoots for Corbis and Onasia photographic agencies. He also organised the acclaimed ‘A Child’s Eye’ project of photos taken by street children in Jakarta and children affected by the conflict in Borneo.

The implacable images of his project stay with us: the forever silenced voices.

Jonathan Perugia writes:

Normally the dead and the missing are faceless. I found it poignant to see these pictures of missing people posted all over town.

These photocopies of family portraits, of special or even mundane moments in ordinary lives, become a unique memorial which emphasises the tsunami in a more personal way than pictures of dead bodies and destruction ever can.

Now, a year on, they remind us not only of what happened in Aceh but of what happens all the time. When we see these kids and these families in such a personal way, it takes us away from sectarianism and nationalism, and reminds us of more universal values.

The earthquake in Pakistan is almost an action replay. The same quotes, the same relentless news machine that rolls into town and then rolls out again.

When you approach the display, you get a sense of anonymity. Then you step forward, and see people’s eyes and expressions. When I first started taking the pictures, I imagined them displayed like this, in a way that gives a sense of the sheer number of victims… then you step closer and get a sense of who they were. It’s a similar feeling to that I had when I saw the photos of Khmer Rouge victims in Phnom Penh: a simultaneous sense of the anonymity of death, and the personalities of the dead.

Some of the photos are almost prescient. There’s one of a little baby who looks as though he’s got an angel above his head. And there’s another of a boy in what must be an amusement arcade. He’s standing in front of the jaws of a monster.

The scale of the destruction is still hard to fathom. Even ten months on, the sense of loss is not diminished. In many areas there has been little substantial rebuilding. Nearly 100,000 people are still in tents.

But.. the life and energy of the people is my strongest impression. Markets heave with life and colour; boats, bikes, cars, trucks weave and sputter; voices are loud; smiles flash; eyes catch mine. And the soldiers are going. After 25-odd years of conflict the peace deal offers the hope of a future free of intimidation and fear. You can see that in the way that people walk, talk and hold your eye.