SBY gives two weeks to clean up Aceh

SBY gives two weeks to clean up Aceh

The Jakarta Post, Banda Aceh

The Indonesia Military (TNI) and body retrievers sped up work on
Monday following an instruction from President Susilo Bambang
Yudhoyono to expedite the cleaning up of Aceh from rubble and
flotsam.

Two excavators and several dump trucks clean Setuy River,
which cuts across Jl. Teuku Umar (see photo) and flows through
the capital of Banda Aceh. The military managed to retrieve 11
decomposed bodies from the river when they started work at about
10 a.m.

In nearby business district on Jl. Pangeran Diponegoro, relief
workers from Yemen and North Maluku worked hand-in-hand to clean
up the damaged area, retrieving more bodies from the rubble.

Head of the disaster mitigating task force in Aceh, Alwi
Shihab, set on Monday a deadline to clean up the province within
two weeks.

Among the relief workers were locals who joined in the search
for more dead bodies as well as those who took their belongings
from their houses or stores.

On the walls of houses in the area heading to Ulee Lheu
village, which is the worst village damaged by the calamity,
there were written messages in red paint informing that the
families had survived, but there was no more information on their
whereabouts.

Meanwhile, Kasmaryati, 53, was still looking for her son
Rudiwin Asura, 29, and four-year-old grandson, Altap Ruwaldo
Patikara. Karmaryati said she had found the bodies of her
daughter-in-law, granddaughter and housemaid. The only survivor
in Banda Aceh was her 19-year-old daughter, Agrifina, who she
took to her house in Takengon, Bireuen, which is about a six-hour
trip from the capital.

"I'll keep looking for them ... I believe they're safe
somewhere," she said. (JP/Ruslan Sangadji)