Meulaboh and other Aceh's western coast see no life
The Jakarta Post Medan/Jakarta
Vice President Jusuf Kalla estimated the death toll in the tidal waves that swept northern Sumatra could reach 25,000 as more signs of massive destruction along the Aceh west coast emerged on Tuesday.
Antara news agency reported on Tuesday that there was no sign of life for 240 kilometers along the western part of Aceh.
Video footage taken by a surviving Army soldier shortly after the tsunami hit Meulaboh and aired by SCTV, showed a wall of water and mud sweeping through the busy seaport.
Bodies of men, women and children were found inside cars, under piles of garbage and in the trees of the demolished town. The dazed survivors, meanwhile, took refuge in a military complex, located in the northern part of the town.
West Aceh Regent Syahmuddin BP said the natural disaster killed at least a quarter of the town's 40,000 residents and destroyed 80 percent its infrastructure.
A distraught Syahmuddin, who was away when the disaster hit, said aid was urgently needed in the area.
"A lot of my people have become victims -- please help us. Please send medicine, food and clothes with helicopters because the roads have been damaged," he was quoted by Antara as saying.
The capital of the West Aceh regency was paralyzed and isolated on Tuesday as roads, bridges, houses, office buildings, schools and rice fields and the local airport were all destroyed.
In an e-mail from Meulaboh, police chief detective Rilo Pambudi confirmed that all economic activity in the town had shut down, food was running out and said there was widespread looting. A further catastrophe loomed, if aid did not reach there soon, he said.
"If relief does not arrive within three to four days, there will be a mass famine and many more will die. The situation in Meulaboh and its surroundings is one of an emergency. Meulaboh is under an SOS code," Rilo said.
Cooking fuel was non-existent and the numbers of dead were rising but the bodies couldn't be buried, he said.
Vice President Jusuf Kalla, who flew over the Aceh west coast in an Air Force 737 on Tuesday, immediately ordered the Navy to focus its relief efforts on the town, to help victims and evacuate the bodies piling up there.
Navy Chief of Staff Adm. Bernard Kent Sondakh said the Navy had immediately dispatched the KRI Imam Bonjol warship to Meulaboh to bring hundreds of boxes of food and medicine to the area.
The Navy would send KRI Teuku Umar and KRI Cut Nyak Dien warships to southern side of the Nias tourist island, where more than 100 people have been reported dead and hundreds of others are still missing.
"We have also prepared more humanitarian aid to help victims in Simeulue Island, which has been swamped by the tidal waves that killed at least 7,000 people," Bernard said.
According to the latest data from the General Elections Commission (KPU), the island's population stands at 76,000.
The Fisheries and Maritime Ministry in Jakarta said that four small islands surrounding the Nias islands were submerged.
It was not known on Tuesday night whether the islands were inhabited.