Wednesday, December 29, 2004

Star reporter visits Ache and describes scene

By Shahanaaz Habib

MEDAN: A drive from Medan into Lhokseumawe, a heartland in the south of the Aceh province, can be a little deceptive in terms of assessing the damage done by the earthquake and tsunami which struck the area only days earlier.

At Langsa, one of the first Acehnese towns after crossing into the province from the south, buses are packed with smiling children in uniform off to school.

Younger children run about playing, women sell lontong and hot tea at their breakfast stalls and shops, banks and restaurants are all open for business as usual.

Shops are packed with the usual items – bottled water, juices, biscuits, chocolates, peanut butter and other sundry items.

There seems to be no panic or mad rush for food or fuel.

But petrol stations do seem to run out of fuel by late evening.

This, however, does not cause anger or long queues at the stations because fresh supply gets in by early next morning and the people know this.

The main road from Langsa to Lhokseumawe, with a number of bridges over rivers, was not damaged; so two days after the Dec 26 earthquake, vehicles, from rickshaws to oil trucks, have been plying the road back and forth.

Power and water supply seem to be unaffected in the main towns of Langsa, Lhoksukon, Lhokseumawe and telephone lines are still up and operating in these parts.

A popular Internet cafe in Lhokseumawe is still enjoying thriving business with youngsters packing the place to play video games or surf the Internet.

The Indonesian military and police force that have been fighting the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) separatists for over two decades are still in full force in the province.

Despite a number of casualties among the soldiers and police from the earthquake and tsunami, and others being deployed for search-and-rescue missions, there seems to be no easing of the countless checkpoints and military posts in this province which has been under martial law for more than a year.

Posts are manned by heavily armed soldiers or police, as usual.

From the main road, the only obvious signs of the disaster are the police-escorted trucks carrying in supplies, people stopping cars to collect money for the earthquake relief fund and makeshift tents set up in these towns to house victims.

But a 20km drive away off the main road and towards the coast tells a different and bleak picture.

Families and villages have been wiped out; houses are still submerged in water, cows and goats lie belly-up, trees are uprooted and bicycles, motorcycles, baby walkers and table fans lie ruined in the mud.

The water-clogged roads pose a challenge to 4WD vehicles.

Grim-face and tired men carry out the dead. In places where the water has receded, people returned to their destroyed homes to look for some of their belongings.

At the coast of Kuala Cangkui, off Lhoksukon, Asmahwati Hasni with bare mud-soaked feet sat down for a rest.

She lost her 65-year-old mother and seven-year-old son when they were swept away by the huge waves.

Their bodies were recovered a day later. But her older sister is still missing.

“I was with my sister at home on Sunday morning. After the earthquake I heard an explosion.

“I thought it was a bomb at first or the sound of war but I told myself that it can’t be. Then I saw this huge surge of water heading towards us and I shouted to my sister to run."

She ran one way and her sister another and when she looked back, she saw the water “chasing” her.

“I know my sister is dead. I just want to get her body so that I can bury her like I did with my mother and my son,” she said.

Asmahwati said her 18-year-old son was suffering from trauma.

“My older son had held on to his younger brother when the water came. But he went under water three times and the last time he couldn’t hold on to the younger one anymore and had to let go.

“Now he feels so much sorrow and says that he killed his brother. He feels that he only saved himself,” she said.

Asmahwati said her heart felt “so much pain from front to back.”

She had returned to try and pick out some “leftovers” from her home that might have been washed inland.

“Everything I have is gone. I have no money, no clothes, no sandals or shoes, no home,” she said. She estimated that 500 people from her area had died or were missing.

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