Posted on 12/28/2004 8:14:26 AM PST by dead
The survivors have blank stares and do not speak. We walk together among black and bloated bodies still lying in the streets of Banda Aceh three days after the 25 minutes of terror that struck on Boxing Day morning.
"We thought it was the end of the world," says Sofyan Halim, who lost 15 members of his family.
Banda Aceh's 40,000 people have suffered greatly over the years, caught in a bitter fight between the Indonesian military and rebels struggling for independence from Jakarta. But nothing like this; never before such death and utter devastation.
Nobody here is talking about recovery, just survival.
This is just a slice of the devastation wreaked across 11 nations by an earthquake and resulting tsunami. The rescue mission here is painfully slow, just as it is in most of the stricken areas.
Only a 16-hour boat ride away, close to the epicentre of the earthquake, is an island of 100,000 people - all of them unaccounted for and beyond the reach of Indonesia's limited resources.
"We just don't know about them," a government official, Djoko Sumaryono, says of Simeulue. "No contact makes us fearful. We're trying to send helicopters there."
An Australian trying to reach Simeulue yesterday with vital aid and a satellite phone also fears the worst. "There will be people there with nothing, no fuel, no food, no water, nothing at all. The whole place is washed away I'd say," Brian Williams says.
Among the ruins of what used to be Banda Aceh's thriving market, shocked men and boys pick through the rubble, ignoring dozens, perhaps hundreds, of rotting bodies.
When the stink becomes unbearable, they cover their faces and continue their search for anything that will keep their families alive. Food is desperately short, so much so that people stand for hours in the sun outside the few shops untouched by the devastation in the hope they will open and sell them food.
Looting and lawlessness are other problems plaguing the region, but there are by no means the worst. The head of Banda Aceh's military hospital, Taufiq Urahman, says there are grave fears of an outbreak of cholera and typhoid. "Banda Aceh is paralysed," he says. "This is a very grim situation."
Survivors say the city was shaken first by two earthquakes, five minutes apart. Three tsunamis came 25 minutes later.
"The water was as high as a coconut palm," says Sofyan Halim. "All the debris came with it. People were screaming. Some got away, many didn't. The water went 15 kilometres inland in some places. It was all over in 25 minutes. That's all. How can that be ... such devastation."
It is difficult to imagine how Banda Aceh can rebuild itself. Trees, uprooted and dumped kilometres away, litter the streets, as do the twisted shells of cars. Layers of stinking mud cover everything and several of the biggest shopping centres have collapsed. Even the symbol of Aceh, the Baiturrahman mosque, has been badly damaged.
One of the many ruins, the three-storey Doctor Zainal Abidin Hospital, tells a particularly grim tale. "Children in emergency wards were killed [when the water hit]," says a nurse, Citra Nurhayat. "Soldier patients suffering from malaria helped to evacuate other patients."
Families sit in shock in the street or in the grounds of mosques. Only the children seem to cry; the parents seem numb with disbelief.
A 34-year-old mother, Nurhayati, says she has only had bananas to feed her three-month-old baby since Sunday. "I need baby food as well ... no aid has come to us yet."
Scores of badly injured people lie in the corridors and on verandahs of the only operating hospital in Banda Aceh. Patients have no water to drink and have only dry packed noodles to eat.
Saripah, 60, who could not hang on to her six-year-old granddaughter in the tsunami, came to the hospital yesterday for medicine. She was turned away. Outside was a 16-year-old girl who lost an entire family. She had been told there was nowhere to treat her leg wound. Nurses say there are thousands like them.
Survivors and rescue workers bring the dead to Lambaro, a village a few kilometres outside the city, and lay them under plastic sheets near a roundabout in the hope that relatives will come and identify them.
But the threat of disease and Muslim tradition that the dead be buried within 24 hours have prompted mass burials.
About 1500 victims, many of them children, were buried after a funeral on Monday night. There are so many bodies - officials say the death toll in Banda Aceh alone may be as high as 10,000 - that an excavator is digging graves on a two-hectare plot of land near the village.
Indonesian officials fear that communities and islands off the west coast of Sumatra may have been even harder hit.
Shortages of food, water and medicines in Banda Aceh are already causing anger among the Acehnese. Indra Utama, a community leader in the city, says the military must provide more urgent aid. "Where is the military?" he asks. "They're just taking care of their families. There is no war in Aceh now, why don't they help pick up the bodies in the street?"
However, the Indonesian military has started flying medical crews and badly needed emergency supplies into the area in Hercules and any other available aircraft from Medan. It admits much more is needed. At an emergency aid centre at the Banda Aceh parliament only biscuits and drinking water had arrived yesterday afternoon.
Brian Williams, who has lived on Simeulue since 2002, yesterday flew into Medan from Sydney with his wife, Dewi.
He is desperate to contact the island, where he runs a surfing and fishing tour business, but communications are down.
He believes the main town, Sinabang, has been "wiped out".
Mr Williams plans to make the 16-hour trip to Simeulue on a boat laden with Australian aid. "I just want to make sure they're all right and get them some help."
My goodness. From years of reading about cyclones in the area and the death toll associated with them I estimated that there could be about 100,000 dead from this disaster. But the numbers I reading here could indicate there are many more than that.
This is beyond horrific.
Of course you are right. It might be the idea of our wonderful, perfect, unique planet turning on us like this is too much for contemplation.
Somalia borders the Arabian Sea which is an arm of and thus part of the Indian Ocean. Southern Somalia borders the Indian Ocean.
100,000 more....geezzzz!!!!
I am wondering about the number of these casualties who were muslims, given the civil unrest they have been causing in places like Indonesia. Anyone have a comment on this aspect of the tragedy
vaudine
Samaritan's Purse (Franklin Graham's organization)has set up an on-line donation area for tsunami relief. Their address is www.samaritanspurse.org.
An excellent organization!
An aerial view of a destroyed village after tidal waves hit following an earthquake near the provincial capital of Banda Aceh, Aceh province, Indonesia, Tuesday, Dec. 28, 2004. At the northern tip of Indonesia's Sumatra island, emergency workers find that 10,000 people were killed in a single town near the epicenter of Sunday's earthquake, and survivors report entire towns inundated by water and starving families surviving on coconuts. (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara)
The new death toll on Fox is now 59,000. Much of the estimates are still preliminary and are rising rapidly. It's time to start talking about the largest loss of life disaster totals in world history. Could this be number one?
General view of the damage at Ton Sai Bay area on Thailand's Phi Phi island, December 28, 2004 after a tsunami hit the area. The sea and wreckage of coastal towns all around the Indian Ocean yielded up tens of thousands of bodies on Tuesday, pushing the toll from Sunday's tsunami past 50,000. REUTERS/Luis Enrique Ascui
Debris are scattered on a narrow section of Phi Phi Island where bungalows formerly stood at Ton Sai Bay,Phi Phi Island, after a tsunami hit the area, December 28, 2004. Nations bordering the Indian Ocean from Indonesia to Sri Lanka clawed through the wreckage of a devastating quake-triggered tsunami
An aerial view of a destroyed and flooded village after tidal waves near the provincial capital of Banda Aceh, Aceh province, Indonesia, Tuesday, Dec. 28, 2004. (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara)
Check this site out for other deadly disasters throughout history. http://www.geocities.com/freepagesfree/disasters.htm
Thanks for that link. The way the toll is rising in this one we might be looking at the top five then. Still awesome.
Giving money is not a wise option. Cash will never reach any of the victims. The "Oil for Food" program clearly shows how "cash" works in thug nations.
Yes, this is a tragedy, but all cash will do is line a corrupt official's pocket. Unless somebody can physically go there and help, like some medical volunteers do, your cash to any organization will be wasted.
Yup the wave jumped the Indian Ocean fence and took over the Arabian Sea...
The great majority of cash to chairities, such as international relief type agencies, is waste. No free thinker can doubt this. Think "Oil for Food", then realize what most charities do with your cash.
Second, there comes a point when reasonable people have to ask why the appeal for charity after a crisis when we spend $1 trillion per year of American tax dollars on welfare? Surely, we can use t=soem of theat money to pre-plan for natural disasters, don;t you think?
Giving to charity will rise if the rape and pillage of American taxpayers stops. In addition to $1 trillion plus of welfare spent domestically, count the billions and billions of dollars given to foreign nations. This "humanitarian assistance" does not buy food and medicine. It either (1) funds terrorists who kill Americans, or (2) lines the pockets of dictators and cronies.
Here is a reasonable approach: Have the UN take cash (with proper oversight and auditing) stockpile food, clothes, personal care items, medicine, etc. and position these items so they can reach most areas of the globe. When a disaster strikes, the supplies of items (not cash) gets to the area.
There is zero accountability for cash donations. Yes, local charities like those that help the mentally ill and such, can have a higher degree of direct need with smaller waste. However, any charity that serves the international community and receives cash contributions will see the great majority of this money evaporated before any good is done for the victims.
If I could take a crate of food to Thailand and some clothes and water, I would do it. Will I give one cent to any charity? No. Not until the United States stops its annual $1 trillion dollar welfare giveaway while failing to have a program in place to deal with natural disasters by using commodities, not actual cash dollars.
I see your point. I have two of my own: if the US were going to prepare for natural disasters, it would be our own, not necessarily international disasters. Secondly, I see no reason to punish tragedy-stricken victims just because I don't like the fact that some of my taxes go to welfare and the like. I'm willing to share, particularly with people who are innocent victims of a terrible diaster.
Thirdly, I hardly think you can use the Oil-for-Food scandal to cast a pall over ALL charities. That's like saying: "Joe Schmo cheated on his high school final exam, therefore, all the students probably cheated. Since I beleive this, I'll just punish all the students, rather than just the one I know is guilty." I think the logic is faulty.
I want to add to my post #56.
If you do NOT pay income taxes, there may be a better case for you to give to a charity.
However, if you pay income taxes, you already have given to charity. I am not talking about your part of the $1 trillion plus that the U.S. government rapes from you then turns around and hands it to others who want your money, nor am I talking about your tax dollars taken from you that is sent to PLO terrorists, terrorists in many other thug nations, and even to N. Korea, in the form of "aid" . . .
I am talking about the money that America will send to tsunami stricken governments. These are YOUR tax dollars they are sending. You are forced to give this money away for tsunami countries evven though you may not want to, and even though the great majority of this money will simply end up in the hands of dictators.
Sri Lanka is refusing to receive aid from Israel? Do you really think these people, with this mentality, will distribute your money in a charitable fashion?
Some of the money going to these nations may well possibly be used to buy a nuke on the black market to kill you and millions of others.
Again, my answer is no. I will never give to any charity for any reason until the waste and corruption of American tax dollars stops, and until complete audits are done to account for the plans and procedures and methods in how the aid was distributed.
This blank check to terrorist nations is a bigger travesty
than the tsunami's destruction.
Has anyone seen a link to a list of the dead US citizens?
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