Sunday October 11, 2009

Padang gets going

BY SHAHANAAZ HABIB

The devastation inflicted by the earthquake in Padang was horrific but it hasn’t broken the spirit of the people there.

FIVE days after the earthquake, law student Rio is back at the beach with his childhood friends Rita, Rico and Mia for their regular weekly night out.

They chat and laugh as they chomp on their favourite grilled corn on the cob covered with sambal and sip on their cool drinks as if they have no care in the world.

Life goes on: A woman selling food on her bicycle walks past shops wrecked by the quake in Padang.

Their homes were partially damaged in the Sept 30 quake. Rita’s kitchen was totally destroyed while Rico’s had cracks all over – but despite all the devastation around them, this bunch has not lost their sense of humour.

“Where are you staying? Why put up at a hotel? You can stay at my place,” jokes Rico, who is studying hotel management.

Not to be outdone, Rio chips in that he and his friends were not going to be leaving Padang just because it is a quake prone area and promptly dishes out a rather bizarre invitation.

“Kalau nak rasa gempa, datang aje ke Padang – rasa gempa secara gratis (If you want to feel an earthquake, come over to Padang and you can experience it for free)!” And the group bursts out laughing.

These are early days after the quake, and unlike in normal times when crowds pack the beachfront at night, now there are just a handful of people out.

Rio (second from right) and his friends enjoying their chillied corn on the cob and light banter by the beachfront. – AZHAR MAHFOF/ The Star

But within minutes, Rio and his friends all become serious. They ask that we go to the fringes of the town to see what is happening there and not focus only on Padang town.

“The villages are like a dead zone. There is still no electricity so it’s all dark and scary. And the rescue and distribution of goods are concentrated in the town area so the villages outside are getting very little help,” says Rio.

As we go around, this is something we hear a lot of.

In Kampung Baru Simpang Aru and Jati Gaung, 5km from the town centre, people complain that hardly anyone has come to see them to help.

Don’t ask them about re-building their crumbled homes. They haven’t given it much thought yet.

Their immediate concern is having enough to eat, a safe place to rest their head and getting electricity and clean water supply up again.

Because they no longer have running water in their homes, villagers have resorted to using the river for bathing, washing clothes and toilet facilities. Drinking water is fetched from shallow wells behind their home but the water is brownish.

So it’s no surprise that some kids have started developing rashes, are vomitting and are down with diarrhoea.

(Other places like Pariaman are luckier because the houses are further apart and the wells are deeper, meaning that water from the well is clean.)

Learning to make do

As for food, villagers are trying to make do with whatever they have.

“We collect and cook together on firewood and share the food. We have to finish dinner by 6pm because once night falls, we can’t move about much. Without lights it’s pitch dark here,” says Ibu Shawerdana.

Painful task: Indonesian army and rescue personnel trying to pull out the bodies of dead pupils from a collapsed school. – AZHAR MAHFOF/ The Star

Their homes in Kampung Baru and Jati Gaung are squeezed so tightly together and the path between them is so narrow that people here are jittery of strong aftershocks (and there have been hundreds) or another quake that could bring what remains of their homes (or their neighbour’s house) down on them.

Trains are not running as the 7.6 magnitude quake damaged a substantial part of the tracks so nervous villagers and their whole families have taken to sleeping on rail tracks – away from any structure – to be safe.

As they often say, earthquakes do not kill people, buildings do.

So far 1,000 people are dead, and thousands more who were trapped under the collapsed structures would by now be dead.

In the four main affected areas Padang, Pariaman, Padang Pariaman and Agam, the National Disaster Management Agency has confirmed that 121,679 houses were badly destroyed, 55,206 moderately damaged and another 57,510 slightly damaged.

The quake too severely damaged 162 roads, nine bridges, 36 markets, 55 clinics and health facilities and 1,182 places of worship.

Almost 70% of the affluent Chinatown is gone. Whole chunks of three-storey and four-storey shophouses are flattened. Many schools and big hotels too have been battered.

When I got to Padang on Thursday, a day after the quake, there was a hive of rescue activity about 50m or so from Hotel Padang where I was staying.

This is where a three-storey school, GAMA, along Jln Proklamasi went down trapping 60 or so children inside.

Moving on: A massive landslide wiped out the entire village of Kampung Chumanak in Padang Pariaman. Villagers and relatives came by to take away whatever belongings they could salvage from the area. – AZHAR MAHFOF/ The Star

Day and night, parents and relatives stood by watching and hoping for their loved ones to be brought out.

The first day, some were brought out alive to thunderous claps and hearty cheers. But as days passed there was just gloom as only the little bodies were being pulled out.

Then on Monday morning, the excavator and activity stopped. And the crowd was gone.

It was chilling. The 60 children have all been accounted for – most dead.

Haunted by cries of children

On the first day, Daud says, he could hear the frantic cries of the children calling for their parents.

“They were asking for food and water and some said they were in pain. They were frightened and kept asking the parents to get them out.”

But as the hours passed, the cries became fainter and then Daud couldn’t hear them anymore.

“It broke my heart. That cry will stay with me forever,” says Daud who was at GAMA as an onlooker.

The father of four lost his home but is thankful that he still has all his family.

Talking to people and getting their stories is second nature to journalists but I must confess I felt a tad guilty interviewing a survivor who was rescued from Ambacang Hotel.

Friska had spent three harrowing days trapped under the rubble of the hotel when rescuers got her out on Saturday.

There were about 100 guests trapped inside the collapsed hotel and Friska was one of the few who made it out alive.

She was recuperating at the M. Djamil Hospital’s High Care Unit when we met her on Monday.

Her jaw was broken and she had head injuries yet the hospital obliged when we asked if we could meet her.

“Ya ibu,” she groans her welcome when told she had guests.

Flanked by family members at her side, Friska then relates in a very coarse and scratchy voice how her throat and mouth had been choked with sand and debris as she lay in the rubble.

“When rescuers finally got to me and gave me water, I tried to drink but my mouth was full of sand. But I didn’t care. I was so thirsty so I rinsed out the sand but there was still so much sand in my mouth.

“I had to rinse with five bottles of water before I could finally have a drink,” she says.

The memory still lingers and she groans for water. Her mother quickly gives her a mouthful but half comes back out.

“She is thirsty but she can’t drink much. Her throat is still sore,” her mother says.

Friska is lying on her back immobile in bed and speaks to us with her eyes closed. She sips water too in that position.

While she lay pinned down under the pile of concrete, she was confident that rescuers would get to her, she says.

“I never lost hope. I prayed La illaha Illaha (God is Great).”

Before we can get more details, the hospital staff usher us away, saying that Friska needs her rest and they do not want her to be upset and traumatised by re-living her ordeal through the interview.

The scene at the hospital is grim.

The quake had damaged parts of the building so it is safer to keep patients in tents on the hospital grounds.

People with deep wounds, broken limbs and even burns lay side by side as doctors and nurses move in and out.

About 50m or so away, the hospital has lined up on the ground body after body so that family members can identify them. They would be there for three days, after which they were buried while some others were removed to the mortuary.

While a huge chunk of Padang and Pariaman is in rubble, the other horror is of villages being “swallowed” up whole in the quake-triggered mudslides that followed.

Whole villages buried

Lubuk Laweh, Kp Koto, Chumanak (Jumena) and Pulau Air used be such picturesque villages with rolling hills, flowing rivers and a suspension bridge.

But the villages have now been sucked deep into the ground and the people buried alive. The mud covering the villages is as high as a coconut tree. And you can’t even see the 20m minaret of the mosque anywhere! It too got swallowed into the earth.

There is just mud, mud and more mud.

Shocked people walk around trying to make out where their homes or relatives’ homes were and where exactly to start searching – or rather digging up their bodies.

Some who are able to find precious items like photographs cling on to them.

In the few days that I was in Padang, I saw no evidence of the Ganyang Malaysia (Crush Malaysia) sentiment.

If anything, people were just so kind and helpful.

They pointed out which hotel had a generator set so that we could charge our laptops and mobile phones (and we were fortunate enough to get a room there) and cooked instant noodles when no restaurant was open and I hadn’t eaten the whole day when I arrived.

Grateful for help

Rescue workers, hospital staff, survivors, and the public were all friendly and forthcoming with information on what was going on.

They were clearly grateful that outsiders including Malaysians had cared enough to come over and report on the disaster.

And they were glad to see foreign countries including Malaysian teams (SMART) and humanitarian organisations on the ground to help the rescue mission and provide humanitarian and medical help.

Because of the proximity between Sumatra and Malaysia (the flight from KL to Padang is only one hour), the people in Padang too were also keen to know if Malaysia felt the quake and if there was any damage.

Ira Mulia supermarket’s owner Affandi, whose four-storey shop was totally destroyed (like most three-storey and higher buildings), is now mulling over whether to build a two-storey lot instead, which would be safer if there is another quake.

“Did people in Malaysia think the whole of Padang was wiped out? No. Please tell them that Tuhan masih kasih pada Padang (God still loves Padang).”

I hope he’s right. With so much damage and no earthquake-proof homes, I dread to think what another earthquake here would do.

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