The tsunami pounded Aceh and the island of Nias in North Sumatra, sending waves as far inland as 7km in places. In Aceh, the tsunami first hit the West coast, then the main town of Banda Aceh and finally the North East coast. Houses, shops and schools were devastated; cars and trucks were seen surfing the waves and ships were churned in the waters, eventually finding moorings in or on top of buildings. Among the floating debris and trapped in buildings and cars, were some of the almost 250,000 members of Aceh's population now counted as dead or missing. In some places, the impact of the tsunami was so great that the land where houses once stood became sea. In other areas, land has appeared were before there was only sea.
In a matter of minutes, towns and villages in the affected areas were wiped from the map. Local economies and livelihoods were decimated, local fishing and farming capacities lost. Soon after the tsunami ceased its destruction, the fight against disease began. A shortage of clean drinking water, medical assistance, medicines, and lack of sanitation created a public health emergency. Tens of thousands of dead bodies littered the streets; thousands more remained trapped in the wreckage of some of Aceh's towns and villages. In the days and weeks following the tsunami, as assistance began to reach the most affected areas, initially from elsewhere in Indonesia, and later from around the world, the scale of death and devastation shocked even the most experienced of relief and rescue workers.
When the waters finally receded and the residents were relieved from the immediate life or death struggle, they surveyed a landscape where a force of nature as powerful as any imaginable had swept through their towns and villages. In many areas, the land where houses, government buildings and hospitals and schools, prisons and businesses once stood was completely flat - in many cases not even the floor tiles remained.
The local economy, administration, and infrastructure also sustained immeasurable damage. The provincial government ground to a halt as civilian government, military and police offices, the judicial system and prisons were destroyed or damaged. The documents of many government departments including the police investigations unit, were destroyed, wiping out all traces of the thousands of cases. Voting lists, land title deeds and other personal records were also lost in the disaster.
Vice President Jusuf Kalla flew over the west coast city of Meulaboh on 28th December and reported that 80% of the city had been destroyed. These, and other aerial surveys, along with eyewitness accounts of waves that were 30 metes high, dashed early hopes that many had survived. The emergency relief effort to the west was made more difficult by the fact that the tsunami rendered the 300km road, which passes through Banda Aceh, Lhok Nga, west to Teunom, Calang and Meulaboh, impassable for cars and trucks. The areas around the West coast city of Meulaboh were completely cut-off and help could only reach survivors by helicopter or ship.
By 4th February 2005, 40 days after the tsunami, 112.872 Acehnese had been officially declared dead; most buried in mass graves. An estimated 127,749 remained missing (BAKORNAS PBP, 5 February) and in early March the respective figures had been adjusted to 125,996 dead and 94,105 missing. February 15: 127,414 already buried mostly in mass graves and 116,368 remaining missing. For some families, not even a photograph remains. The exact number of lives lost remains uncertain and will likely never be known, especially as many did not register missing family members:
"Why should I report my parents, brothers and sister, aunts and uncles, cousins, nephews, nieces and almost 300 members of my family missing? They are not missing - they are dead"
Interview with a resident of Lamjabat Banda Aceh, 3 January, 2005What is clear however, is that entire communities were decimated; in some places, little of the people or the infrastructure remains. In the worst areas, the only testament to the lost communities are in the memories of survivors.
More women and children died than men; as the earthquake and tsunami struck on a Sunday morning when many women were at home with their children while the men had gone to the market or on other errands, giving them more chance to escape the waves that swept inland. It is also the case that many more men than women can swim, and that the women, taking care of children, were probably less able to climb trees and scramble onto buildings.
The impact of the tsunami was presented by the Department of the Interior (Depdagri) to a shocked Indonesian Cabinet: the districts worst affected by the tsunami were Aceh Jaya, where damage to buildings was 85%, Aceh Besar 80%, the capital city of Banda Aceh 75%, Simeulu island 50%, Sabang island 45% and West Aceh 60%. An estimate of preliminary damage and loss by the National Development Planning Agency (BAPPENAS PBP) for the province of Aceh and North Sumatra was US$4.5 billion. This included more than 250,000 houses, 8 ports and 4 fuel depots; 85% of water supplies and 92% of the sanitation system in the worst affected areas. As many as 2,704 mosques, 8 churches, and two temples were also damaged. In addition, 423km of primary road, and 2,191km of secondary roads in the province were closed.
In the west coast city of Meulaboh, 80% of electricity cables fell, leaving the area in almost total darkness. Even in the Central Aceh town of Takengon, which was unaffected by the tsunami, the earthquake caused 100 electricity poles to topple affecting thousands of homes and businesses.
In the worst tsunami-affected areas, health services were severely disrupted as hospitals and clinics were washed away, collapsed or were so badly damaged that they became inoperable. Three of Aceh's 32 hospitals were totally destroyed, another 4 badly damaged. Many sub-district health clinics were also lost; 37 were destroyed, 40 damaged, and 15 small local clinics were also rendered useless. The local Department of Health reported 337 health workers confirmed dead, and another 441 missing.
Damage to the education sector was also substantial; 387 schools were destroyed, and 954 were damaged (National Education and Culture Department - 28 January 2005). On 20th January, the head of the Department of Education in Aceh reported that 1,148 teachers had been confirmed dead and around 1,000 others were missing. The department conceded that this number could rise as access to the devastated areas improved and more information became available.
For a small population of only 4 million people, Aceh has a surprisingly high number of universities; student numbers vary from only a few hundred to several thousands. The Directorate General of Higher Education reported that 23 universities in Aceh had been destroyed and as many as 200 university lecturers killed by the tsunami.
Economic activity in Aceh has largely developed around traditional farming, forestry and fishing, as well as local crafts such as embroidery and weaving. Aceh's workforce numbers 2.5 million; of these, more than 1 million work in the agriculture sector. In the coastal villages, most people are involved in the fishing industry. The local branch of the Maritime and Fisher Ministry reported that more than 14,000 fishermen were killed in the disaster, while between 6,000 to 8,000 fishing boats were either destroyed or lost. Meanwhile in farming sector, the devastation occurred in 9 districts, causing 51,446 hectares of land used for rice, beans, chilli and other food crops to be rendered useless. In addition, a further 56,500-102,461 hectares of plantation land for rubber, palm oil, clove, cocoa, and coffee was affected. The land has been heavily contaminated by mud and salt, and was covered in debris, bringing farming in many areas to a complete halt. Livestock were affected; 141,011 cows and buffalo, 89,244 goats and lambs, and 1,624,431 chicken and ducks were lost (Indonesian Agency for Agricultural Research and Development, 22 February 2005).
Newspapers reported the stories of survivors from Lampu'uk, a small coastal community about 15km from Banda Aceh: "'When the survivors of Lampu'uk had picked themselves up out of the mud of the tsunami, several appalling facts became clear. The first was that their town no longer existed. The second was that 4 out of 5 of its former inhabitants were dead. But it took a while to realise the strangest thing of all: that among those who made it to higher ground, or who kept their heads above the surging waters, so few were women.
Out of a population of about 6,000, only 950 residents of Lampu'uk had been accounted for yesterday and fewer than 200 of those were female. In one of the town's constituent villages only 4 women were left alive, three of those because they were out of town when the wave struck".
In rural coastal areas many men were out fishing at sea, and many survived, as the waves passed under their small boats. The waves hit the shore, flattening the coastal communities and killing many of the women and children, most of whom would traditionally be at home on a Sunday morning. In agricultural areas, men were often out in the fields, working, or doing errands away from the house, or were taking produce to markets. Again, women were at home with children, and when the wave struck, lost vital seconds in trying to gather children to them.
The sheer strength needed to stay alive in the torrent was often also decisive in who survived. Many women and young children, unable to struggle to stay on their feet or afloat in the wave, simply tired and drowned. Women clinging to one or several children would tire even more quickly.
The gender imbalance is likely to have a wide impact. Concerns include:
What will the gender imbalance mean for women's workloads? This will depend on whether men (for example, widowers or grown male orphans) take on household and childcare responsibilities, and thus transform dominant gender roles. If this does not happen, surviving women may see their workloads increase as they care for extended families.
What will it mean for women's mobility? Women in Aceh, especially married ones, enjoy a degree of personal freedom that allows them to take part in work of different types, and to attend school and religious and other events. For younger, unmarried women, such mobility is much more limited. With the disproportionate number of men in communities, will the limitation imposed on the mobility and visibility of women increase and thus their ability to benefit from access to services, information, and decision-making opportunities?
What will it mean for marriage and formation of families? The possibility exists that surviving women may be encouraged to marry earlier than in the past with implications on their education, livelihoods, and reproductive health. Surviving women may also be encouraged to have more children, with shorter intervals between them, to replace those lost by the community. Again, this has consequences for their reproductive health and their ability to earn an independent income, and concerns of increased poverty as the extra children create extra expense. The lack of education for the next generation as education comes second to bringing in a wage to help the family survive. We are very concerned that the education of an older sibling is being sacrificed to care for the remaining family.
Tsunami survivors flocked once again to the urban areas, as services for IDPs were more available in urban areas. Many were worried if they stayed too long in their rural village, they might not get the supplies they needed, as described by Zulfikar (46 years old), a resident of Banda Aceh, who went back to his wife's family in Pidie two days after the tsunami:
"A couple of days after the tsunami we all went back to our village in Pidie. Although we had to live at my mother in laws place with the another twenty one people from my wife's extended family who also lost their houses in Banda Aceh and Aceh Besar, it was good for us, especially children, to get together with family and other villagers and feel safe with the support of one another. But after about a month, we realized that we will not get enough help if we stayed in Pidie. So all of us moved back to Banda Aceh and we had to stay in family and relatives places, or some had to go to barracks. Some choose to commute every other week or so between Banda Aceh and Pidie. This way, we got relief supplies."Despite the fact that Aceh is a very rich region, poverty and income distribution inequality has been a growing problem since the 90s. In the 70, there is substantial evidence that poverty rates were unusually low, due in part to a large surplus of rice, the staple food crop. Measured in 1980, just 1.8 % of the rural population and 1.7% of the urban population was below the poverty line - among the lowest in Indonesia. By contrast, in 1999-2000, 16.3% of rural and 10.15% urban population in Aceh 'subsisted below Indonesia's already low poverty line'. According to BPS report in 1993, 40% of 5,643 villages in Aceh are under minimum government-set welfare standard.
Prior to the tsunami, then Governor Abdullah Puteh noted in October 2003 that 'The unemployment and poverty rates caused by the conflict in Aceh are alarming'. The Governor cited recent data showing that 40% of its 4.2 million people are living under the poverty line. In terms of households, the situation is worse. Aceh's National Coordinating Office for Family Planning reported that 476,579 (54.09%) out of 881,078 households in Aceh live in poverty with unemployment more than 300,000.
In an UN report on 06 July 2006:
"Many people in Indonesia do not get enough to eat, significant numbers of the country's children are underweight and infant mortality continues to be a problem right across the island nation's archipelago, according to a new UN backed study released to day. More than 30% of pre-school children are underweight in 722 sub-districts particularly in North, West and South Sumatra."
Likewise on 06 September 2006:
"Conditions in Indonesia's disaster-ravaged regions of Aceh and Nias are so dire that large numbers of primary school children are suffering from stunted physical growth and retarded intellectual development, according to a new study financed by the United Nations World Food Programme. Researchers surveyed 1,440 primary school children in 60 schools in Aceh and another 480 children in 20 schools on the island of Nias in March and April of this year. They found that 27% of students in Aceh and 36% in Nias suffered from stunted growth while one child in 5 was significantly underweight."
The physical and mental stress caused by the conflict is reflected in data from the local Department of Health (2004): 51 per cent of the population of Aceh suffers psychological and physical 'disability' due to the conflict. Depression accounts for 25.7 per cent of this and 18.4 per cent is due to trauma and panic. It further states that a majority of psychological trauma is suffered by women.
According to a report in 1993 40% of 5,643 villages in Aceh are under minimum, government-set welfare standards. Aceh's National Coordinating Office for Family Planning reported that 476,579 (54.09%) out of 881,078 households in Aceh live in poverty with unemployment at more than 300,000.