Banda Aceh rouses from disaster

Banda Aceh rouses from disaster

The Jakarta Post, Banda Aceh, Lhokseumawe

As President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono visited the ravaged west
coast Aceh town of Meulaboh on Saturday, life in the provincial
capital of Banda Aceh slowly returned to normal with the start of
trading activities in its traditional markets.

Susilo went to Meulaboh, one of a few cities that remained
isolated from the outside world, to ensure that aid would
continue pouring into the tsunami-hit region despite a myriad of
problems in distribution.

He ordered the military to accelerate aid distribution across
Aceh. "Immediately channel this aid. Logistical assistance must
not be severed," Susilo told soldiers deployed for the relief
effort.

The President was in Meulaboh for a few hours, visiting
refugees at the office of the local regent and touring the town
to get a glimpse of ground zero.

The government has estimated that only 25 percent of buildings
in Meulaboh, which lies close to the epicenter of Sunday's 9.0
magnitude quake that generated the tsunami, are still standing.

Susilo visited Banda Aceh and Lhokseumawe on Monday after
celebrating Christmas with victims of an earlier quake in Nabire,
Papua.

In Banda Aceh, six days after the tidal wave swept across the
coastal city, one of the largest traditional markets, Lambaro,
started to breath new life into the town as vendors opened their
stalls, offering the most accessible goods to customers.

"Although the tidal waves ruined parts of my shop, some of the
goods inside were spared. With the remaining items I can resume
business," one vendor, Hadi, was quoted by Antara as saying.

Various reports said a large number of vendors were selling
fresh vegetables and fruit.

The Ministry of Trade has allocated Rp 8 billion (US$890,000)
to build 240 emergency markets across the province and for the
immediate reconstruction of 30 markets in six worse-hit
regencies.

Although passengers were difficult to find as tsunami
survivors concentrated their activities within and around the
vicinity of Baitur Rahman Grand Mosque, a number of public
transportation vehicles started to ply their routes in some
quarters of Banda Aceh.

Another reason for residents of Banda Aceh to draw a sigh of
relief was the return of electricity after days of a power outage
in the wake of the disaster.

Minister of Health Fadilah Supari said that the distribution
of medicines for survivors were beginning to be distributed by
aid workers, whose number had been augmented by officials from
the social services agency and personnel from the Indonesian Red
Cross, the Indonesian Military (TNI) and the National Police.

The ministry earlier announced that it had given up counting
tsunami casualties and would later give a final estimate. The
latest death toll has been estimated at 82,000, mostly in Banda
Aceh, Sabang and west coast regencies of Aceh Jaya and Aceh
Besar.

In the northern part of Aceh, dead bodies are no longer
visible in public places after aid workers and survivors managed
to recover and bury them.

"In the past three days, we managed to remove all the dead
bodies from villages and subdistricts," natural disaster
mitigation team for North Aceh spokesman Azhari Hasan said in
Lhokseumawe.

However, the town was again disrupted when an aftershock,
reported at 6.5 on the Richter scale, rocked Banda Aceh on
Saturday afternoon.

Various television footage showed survivors in Banda Aceh
rushing toward open spaces where they would be safe from falling
buildings.