Acehnese scramble in search of loved ones

Agencies/Jakarta/Padang

"I'm tired. I'm looking for my father. Please help me," wailed Maimori, 22, a Banda Aceh resident, quoted as saying by Reuters on Monday. Maimori said she had spoken to her father, a fish seller, early on Sunday morning before he left for the market in Banda Aceh.

Maimori was not alone in her grief. Thousands of people across Aceh were hoping and praying for the recovery of their loved ones on Monday, with the province's capital of Banda Aceh the nation's worst-hit area.

A reporter for Jakarta's Metro TV station said tidal waves unleashed by the quake had surged into the city, filling streets with up to four meters of water as the earth rocked for five minutes.

Destruction was also brought to the tiny town of Paton Labu, close to Bireuen regency on Aceh's northern coast. "It was as if God had unleashed his anger on the people," said Haji Ali, a Paton Labu resident, quoted as saying by AFP.

The giant waves reached as far as the Mentawai Islands in West Sumatra, over 1,000 kilometers from the epicenter of the earthquake in Aceh's Meulaboh waters.

Horas Marohatta Tasilippet, 35, a resident of the tiny island of Pagai Utara, recalled that huge waves had swept away houses hundreds of meters inland. "The residents scrambled to reach higher ground," Horas told The Jakarta Post on Monday.

No fatalities were reported on Pagai Utara.

Along Aceh's coastline, flimsy straw-roofed houses lay crushed or tossed aside while vehicles were scattered in rivers and ditches.

Bloodied corpses covered by plastic sheets lay rotting on the ground at an Indonesian Red Cross office in Lambaro on the northern outskirts of Banda Aceh.

Residents of Lhokseumawe city on the northern coast of Aceh were struggling on Monday to cope with the devastation.

"It smells so bad ... The human bodies are mixed in with dead animals like dogs, fish, cats and goats," marine Col. Buyung Lelana, the head of an evacuation team in Lhokseumawe, told Reuters by telephone.

In East Nusa Tenggara, the families of Indonesian Military (TNI) officers assigned to the war-torn province were waiting for reports from the area.

Chief of Wirasakti Military Command in East Nusa Tenggara Col. Moeswarno Moesanip said five soldiers had died when giant waves hit Pidie seaport in Lhokseumawe, where the TNI is battling the Free Aceh Movement (GAM).

"One of the five was assigned to Aceh last year, when his wife was pregnant. The baby was born when he was in Lhokseumawe and now, after the disaster, he will never see the face of his father," said Moeswarno, quoted as saying by Antara news agency.