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.