Corpse evacuation in Aceh continues: PMI

Abdul Khalik, The Jakarta Post, Banda Aceh, NAD

Humanitarian volunteers are still finding corpses in Aceh, almost two months after the tsunami struck the stricken province, a relief worker says.

Some 1,850 volunteers from the Indonesian Red Cross (PMI) and other organizations were still recovering and burying between 200 and 300 corpses a day, a PMI official said.

Body recovery unit head Eka Susila said that, as of Tuesday, the volunteers had buried a total of 123,142 bodies across the province, while in the past three days alone they had recovered 839.

Eka said most of Aceh's coast areas had been cleared of bodies while volunteers were still finding hundreds in in the west, primarily in regions around Calang, Aceh Besar and Meulaboh.

"While our target was to finish our work by the end of this month, we are still finding hundreds of bodies every day. Most of them are under the rubble of destroyed buildings. We will review our activities on Feb. 26 to decide whether to declare our operation over, or to continue the massive search," he said.

Eka appealed to locals to help search in their neighborhoods and report any finds to the PMI.

"However, they are also welcome to bury the dead bodies once they find them by themselves," Eka said.

It was getting harder for workers to evacuate bodies now because many were wedged under large chunks of concrete or piles of timber. Most volunteers were removing their masks to find the bodies by the stench, not by sight, he said.

After two months, in many cases they found only skeletons or partial remains.

Difficult road access and lack of heavy equipment had hampered the search and it was still challenging for the PMI, the military and other non-governmental organizations to enter some remote areas.

"We have to synchronize our schedules with local institutions in order to be able to use their equipment. Sometimes, we also lack gloves and boots," Eka said.

He denied rumors that many bodies could still be seen hanging in trees in Meulaboh. Volunteers had now removed all the visible bodies from the area, he said.

Despite the difficulties, he estimated aid workers had cleared about 90 percent of the tsunami-hit areas.

The National Coordination Body for the Aceh Tsunami reported on Tuesday that 113,397 people were still listed as missing from the tsunamis.

While many of these were probably dead, others could still be in refugee camps or have left the province to start new lives elsewhere, the report said.