West coast stays deadly quiet

West coast stays deadly quiet

The Jakarta Post, Medan/Jakarta

The death toll in the tidal waves that swept northern Sumatra has
surpassed 27,000 as more signs of massive destruction along the
Aceh west coast emerged on Tuesday.

AFP reported on Tuesday evening that death toll leapt to more
than 27,000 on Tuesday as desperate SOS calls came from an
obliterated coastline.

Meanwhile, Antara state news agency said 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.