In the Indonesian province of Aceh on the northern end of Sumatra, a Mw 6.1 strike-slip earthquake killed at least 35 people and injured 276 others.

Aceh is the westernmost province of Indonesia. It is located on the northern end of Sumatra island, with Banda Aceh being its capital and largest city. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the west, Strait of Malacca to the northeast, as well bordering the province of North Sumatra to the east, its sole land border, and shares maritime borders with Malaysia and Thailand to the east, and Andaman and Nicobar Islands of India to the north. Granted a special autonomous status, Aceh is a religiously conservative territory, with the majority of the population being Muslim and the only Indonesian province practicing Islamic Sharia law officially. There are ten indigenous ethnic groups in this region, the largest being the Acehnese people, accounting for approximately 70% of the region's population of about 5.55 million people in mid-2024. Its land area of 56,839.09 km² is comparable to Croatia or Togo or the U.S. state of West Virginia or Russia's Pskov Oblast.

Sumatra is one of the Sunda Islands of western Indonesia. It is the largest island that is fully within Indonesian territory, as well as the sixth-largest island in the world at 482,286.55 km² (182,812 mi.²), including adjacent islands such as the Simeulue, Nias, Mentawai, Enggano, Riau Islands, Bangka Belitung and Krakatoa archipelago.

On 2 July 2013, an earthquake struck the Indonesian island of Sumatra with a moment magnitude of 6.1 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of VI (Strong). The strike-slip earthquake killed at least 43 people and injured more than 2,500 others in the province of Aceh where approximately 4,300 homes were damaged or destroyed.