Faraway haven left in ruins

Lam Puuk was a beach town on Aceh's west coast, renowned for its grilled seafood and gorgeous sunsets, and treasured by surfers for its laid-back atmosphere and challenging waves.

Nine days ago, the surf turned into a monstrous wall of water that wiped it and nearby seaside towns out.

Of the 7000 people who lived in the area, only 100 survived. Yesterday, on the wrecked road to Lam Puuk, a stray dog nibbled on a corpse left to rot in the sun.

Of the places hit by the tsunami, the Indonesian province of Aceh suffered most grievously. The official death toll stands at 80,000, although many regard that as a gross underestimate.

More than half the victims lived on the enchantingly beautiful west coast, a stretch of long white beaches backed by emerald mountains.

Now that coastline - near the epicentre of the earthquake that sparked the tidal waves - is in ruins, its towns literally washed off the map.

On a helicopter aid flight over the area on Monday, an apocalyptic vista unfolded, revealing an empty landscape, virtually devoid of life.

The once densely populated plains are peppered with the concrete foundations of houses, the only sign of thriving communities where people spent their days fishing in the Coral Sea or farming chillies and cocoa. Homes, schools and offices are replaced by a nothingness relieved only by the occasional smashed husk of a building or patch of forlorn palm trees.

Black floodwaters swirl all around, and the tidal wave line is sharply drawn. Behind it lie intact houses and mosques and scenic rice fields. In front there is nothing but rubble and debris, caked in a thick blanket of mud.

The height of the lethal waves is visible in the trees, where the leaves are dead and brown as high as 6m up.

In the town of Lamno, survivors swarmed around the Indonesian Air Force Cougar that landed on a soccer field to deliver biscuits, water and plastic sheeting for tents.

Paramedics dashed out with an injured man on a stretcher who was awaiting transport to hospital in the capital, Banda Aceh.

Like most of the west coast, Lamno is inaccessible except by air, with roads collapsed and bridges damaged. Two dozen flights a day are taking emergency food and medicines to remote towns and villages.

 

Such was the speed and force of the tsunami that most residents had no time to flee to the hills behind the town.

The Indonesian Government, stung by criticism of the slowness of its relief operation, insists all communities are receiving aid. There are reports, however, of displaced people walking for five days to reach refugee camps after waiting in vain for help from the air.

Social Welfare Minister Alwi Shihadi told the Independent: "The logistics are sufficient. The emergency situation is over. Food and medicine are getting through without problems. No one is starving."

Asked about the number of refugees in Aceh, he replied: "I don't know. I'm not good with figures."

Shihadi said relief organisers faced "very unusual conditions", adding, "there is no word suitable to describe the catastrophe".

"The magnitude of the disaster is so huge, it is beyond our imagination."

Lam Puuk, like other towns along the coast, was a popular holiday destination for people from Banda Aceh, as well as foreign visitors, mainly from the Netherlands and Germany.

Teenagers met to play music in the open air and children floated in the turquoise water on lilos. On the day of the tsunami, a Sunday, it was packed.

Now the tourist cottages have gone, together with the golf course, picnic ground, swimming pool and fish cafes.

Lam Puuk no longer exists. In its place is a godforsaken landscape where excavated corpses wrapped in plastic lie by the roadside, seemingly abandoned, like rubbish. The sickly odour of death attests to the presence of more bodies beneath the rubble. Only the mosque, a gleaming white building, still stands.

In a nearby refugee camp, 40-year-old Rasidah sobbed as she told how she lost her husband, two brothers and 2-year-old daughter. She was running her stall at the town's market, a little inland, when the tsunami struck.

The body of her little girl, Risana, was found 1.6km away. Her husband's body has not been found. "I also lost many of my staff," said Rasidah, who rented holiday bungalows to tourists.

An elderly man from Lam Puuk lost his wife, son and daughter. "Aceh is broken," he said, patting his heart. "But we are Muslims. We still pray. What else can we do?"

A few kilometres further south, the road ends abruptly, where a stone bridge has crumpled into a river. To reach the town of Lhok Nga, which was another idyllic spot, you must cross the water in a wooden fishing boat and then walk for 1.6km.

Survivors gazed at the devastation, trying to recall their town. "We were proud to live in such a beautiful place," said Samsuardi, 23. "Now there is nothing left."

- INDEPENDENT