Hundreds of corpses still found every day in Banda Aceh
Hundreds of corpses still found every day in Banda Aceh
Margie Mason, Associated Press/Banda Aceh
Yusniar Amara and her boyfriend watched a beautiful sunset over the beach in Banda Aceh just after finishing a dive together. It was the last time they would ever see each other before the devastating tsunami washed him out to sea.
But instead of waiting for news about his fate, Yusniar put on a mask and boots and began walking the shoreline alone pulling out bloated bodies in search of her "honey." She's spent the past seven weeks searching for him with no luck while retrieving thousands of other bodies for burial.
"I'd rather be doing this than just crying about it at home," she said after pulling two bodies from the debris of what was once a hotel. "I'm very upset ... I didn't get to talk to him."
Yusniar and thousands of other volunteers, who are nearly all men, spend their days in knee-deep mud pulling bloated bodies from beneath piles of wood and twisted metal. The lack of heavy equipment and the sheer number of corpses -- more than 120,000 dead in Indonesia and many more missing -- means the grisly task will likely continue for months.
Now, most bodies are now much harder to reach, often inside crumbling houses or buried under mountains of debris. Inside a small village nestled against a mountain, large swaths of land once dotted with emerald rice fields are now cluttered with heaps of tangled wooden planks, downed trees, doors and suitcases. The earth is now a black, brackish sludge four kilometers from the sea.
The volunteers from Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam province and elsewhere in Indonesia sniff the air for rotting bodies and look for circles of flies to help them find corpses. They stop at one site and begin digging, using only sticks and their hands to lift wood, metal and mud from atop the victim. It takes 30 minutes to reach the bloated corpse that's so badly decomposed that it's impossible to decipher the gender.
The crew searches for any identification before zipping the body into a bag and placing it on the roadside where about 10 others are later added.
"It's very, very hard to say we want to continue this job," said Adi, a 25-year-old student who left school to join one of the city's 77 search and rescue teams. "There's more and more and more. It might take maybe five years to take out all the bodies in Aceh."
His group, which has dwindled to about 30 volunteers, continues to find about 15 bodies a day. They have two chain saws but no heavy machinery or shovels to lift the heavy slabs of concrete or uprooted palm trees. They trip and slide while stepping across twisted roots and planks of wood covered with rusty nails as they scour areas -- sometimes several times -- to try to ensure they haven't missed anyone.
Families and businesspeople who discover bodies while clearing their property also often call and ask the teams to come because they are frightened of removing the bodies themselves.
In a few cases, wallets or identification cards are found and the victim's family is located with help from agencies that keep lists of the missing.
The volunteers' work is mentally and physically draining, but the crew members continue to smile and joke with one another. They say their dreams are not haunted by the grim images of their work and that they will continue to search until they're forced to find other work that pays.
But, sometimes, they get something better than money. Adi, who goes by only one name, said at least one person in his crew has located a dead loved one. Others volunteers say they continue to be motivated by the simple desire to see their fellow Acehnese buried with dignity.
"We cannot put it into words. It's priceless," said Zulfikar, 30. "If we quit, who else will do this?"
Yusniar says she and her boyfriend, Tirta, worked together as rescue divers before the tsunami.
"I met with a fortune teller and he said (Tirta) couldn't make it and his body's still in the ocean," she said. "And the soul is saying, 'Please rescue me from the ocean."'