Life slowly returns to Banda Aceh

Harry Bhaskara, The Jakarta Post, Banda Aceh

The following articles are based on a three-day visit by Harry Bhaskara of The Jakarta Post to Aceh on June 7. The visit was sponsored by the Melbourne- based Asia Pacific Journalism Center and was made together with eight Australian journalists.

Banda Aceh seems to have a second soul: The commercial part of the city is bustling with life.

Except for a few shattered buildings, few traces remain of the catastrophic earthquake and tsunami that struck six months ago.

"This is exactly what it was like before the tsunami," says Udin, a civil servant in Banda Aceh.

Most restaurants, shops and offices have been reopened. Children in school uniforms walk along the streets. The ubiquitous motorized becak (pedicabs) are back in service. Youngsters play soccer in muddy fields.

The evening cafes along Jl. Machmudsyah, catering to a young clientele, have been reopened. Teenagers park their motorbikes on side streets and sip coffee and soft drinks as darkness falls.

"It says in the Koran that a huge amount of water is poured into the land," says Bachtiar, a 53-year-old civil servant in Banda Aceh. "We have to accept the tsunami as something that was sent by God. It is not right to vent our anger at God."

He said this awareness came slowly following what seemed to be an endless feeling of sadness.

Juwai of Deah Baru village said Acehnese were used to gales and storms, but the tsunami was something they could not escape.

"We should accept our fate; it is God's will that we have to go through this suffering," he said.

The smoothly flowing traffic in Banda Aceh is a far cry from the scene of destruction immediately after the Dec. 26 tsunami, when it took more than two hours to travel just one kilometer.

"I will never forget the scenes of utter destruction I saw when I arrived here," says Enayet Madani, a UN government liaison officer in Banda Aceh who was out of the capital when the tsunami struck.

"The streets were full of bodies, debris and mud. Nobody did anything about it because people were frantically looking for their loved ones," he says.

But the havoc brought about by the tsunami is much more pronounced in those parts of the city within three kilometers of the coast. Shattered buildings lie in ruins, testament to the earthquake measuring 9.8 on the Richter scale that preceded the tsunami. More than 129,000 people died in the earthquake and tsunami and a further 90,000 are unaccounted for. The apocalyptic scale of the disaster is most visible in coastal areas like Lhok Nga and Baet village.

These are places of total destruction.

The tsunami may have occurred six months ago, but its impact is still felt.

"I only found out today that one of my cousins died in the tsunami," said Nina Darmawan who was living in Medan at the time of the tsunami but has since moved to Banda Aceh. "I have been searching for her for six months and I met a friend today who told me that she had already died."

She said her sister, who lives in a coastal area of Banda Aceh, heard two huge explosions just before the earthquake on Dec. 26. "The explosion seemed to originate from the bottom of the sea," she said, quoting her sister.

People also wonder whether the parties held on Dec. 25 to celebrate the upcoming New Year helped invoke God's anger.

"Last year's parties were exceptionally raucous. People were partying through the night until the early morning on beaches in Banda Aceh," said Udin.