Aceh's traumatized fishermen coaxed back to the tranquil sea
Aceh's traumatized fishermen coaxed back to the tranquil sea
Karima Anjani, Reuters/Banda Aceh
The damage to the important fishing industry in Indonesia's tsunami-hit Aceh province could be lighter than was feared but many fishermen have suffered deep trauma, U.N. officials said on Thursday.
Aceh on the northern tip of Sumatra island bore the brunt of the Dec. 26 earthquake and tsunami, which displaced 400,000 people and left 240,00 dead or listed as missing.
Nerves are still raw in the devastated province and people ran into the streets in panic and prayed earlier on Thursday when one of the many aftershocks still being felt rattled Aceh.
The quake, measured at 5.9 on the Richter scale and centred about 85 km (53 miles) south of the provincial capital Banda Aceh, interrupted a U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) briefing for local officials and non-government organizations.
Figures released on Thursday showed that 6,611 fishermen, or almost 11 percent of the total number on Aceh's east coast, were killed. Numbers for the west coast are yet to be compiled but are expected to be much higher.
Some 5,224 boats, or 46 percent of the fleet, were destroyed or lost on the east coast.
"The damage is bad, but not as bad as had been anticipated," FAO fisheries adviser Uli Schmidt told Reuters.
"We have some figures which have been published by other agencies which talked of some areas in the east coast of losses of 100 percent," Schmidt said. "But if you go there you find plenty of fishing boats of different sizes are still there."
FAO headquarters in Rome later put the total damage bill to the fisheries sector in the seven Indian Ocean nations worst affected by the tsunami at $520 million.
It said 111,073 fishing boats had been damaged or destroyed, putting a huge strain on regions like Aceh where fishing is a vital source of food and income.
Until the tsunami, Aceh and nearby Nias island had a vibrant fishing industry with an annual output 158,578 tonnes in 2003, made up of 133,976 tonnes of fish caught at sea and 24,602 tonnes harvested from aquaculture.
Total annual value of production was estimated at 1.59 trillion rupiah ($171 million), with the sector accounting for for 6.5 percent of Aceh's GDP.
Aceh had only one medium-size fish-canning facility and most of the fish caught were consumed by seafood-loving Acehnese or exported unprocessed overseas or to other parts of the country.
The value of government and private infrastructure in the sector before the tsunami is estimated at 1.9 trillion rupiah.
"I think the impact will be much more severe in the west coast, but what we're having at the moment is a deep trauma by many fishermen," Schmidt said.
Despite the tsunami's horror, officials said getting back to work was one of the main priorities for Aceh's residents, including more than 400,000 living in makeshift camps.
They believed it was only a matter of time before fishermen got over their fears and returned to the now tranquil sea.
"It would be, for example, not very good to try to make them into something else other than fishermen," Schmidt said.
"I think they should go back fishing, and we should provide them with the means to do so," he said.
Officials like FAO master fisherman Robert Lee said the reconstruction of the fisheries sector would take several years because of the poor quality of boats and the lack of structure in the industry even before the disaster.
One of the most important goals would be to extend the average lifespan of the wooden boats to about 10 years from the current five or six, Lee said.
Materials used to rebuild them would be sourced locally to boost the resource-rich but underdeveloped province's economy.
"I wouldn't pretend that we can do this immediately. Even if there's not an emergency, this whole intervention would take time," Lee said. ($1 = 9,295 rupiah)
REUTERS
GetRTR 3.00 -- FEB 17, 2005 19:49:03