Near Ya'ahowu Park stands the Nias Earthquake Monument, built to commemorate the victims of the March 28, 2005 earthquake — magnitude 8.6, one of the ten most powerful ever recorded in human history. The names of the 220 people killed in Gunungsitoli are inscribed on the structure. In total, at least 915 people died across Nias and the surrounding region, and nearly half of Gunungsitoli's population fled in the aftermath.
The monument is a sombre but important stop. About 30 percent of the city's buildings collapsed that day; what looks like a functional, unremarkable Indonesian provincial capital was rebuilt largely from scratch in the decade that followed. The land itself shifted: coastlines moved 50 to 100 metres and parts of the island rose by nearly three metres.