Rescuers scramble to clear bodies before disease takes hold
Indonesia clean-upDecember 28, 2004 Edition 1
Banda Aceh: Indonesian rescue workers pulled hundreds of bodies from treetops, rivers and wrecked homes in Aceh province yesterday, trying to clean up before disease could spread after a tsunami killed nearly 5 000.
But more than 24 hours after waves swept through downtown streets of this provincial capital, troops were still unloading piles of bodies from military trucks as weeping survivors tried to identify victims.
At a market on the outskirts, swollen bodies were covered with orange plastic sheets.
"I'm tired. I'm looking for my father. Please help me," wailed Maimori, 22. She said her father was a fish seller and last spoke to her on Sunday before market.
In the city centre, dozens of bodies were on the streets, while debris - a mix of mud, ruined trucks and cars, mangled motorcycles, and wood from shattered houses - had yet to be cleared.
A ship over 50 metres long sat on a street near the seafront where the waters had left it.
"I was outside my house, people were screaming 'big waves, big waves', then I was carried off," said Nazarudin, 40, lying on the floor of a hospital hall wearing a sarong. His foot was mangled and his face cut.
"I managed to hold on to a tree. But my wife is gone."
The wall of water up to 10m high that followed the earthquake more than 23 000 people across southern Asia as it swept across the Indian Ocean.
Many of the dead in Aceh were youngsters and elderly who drowned in waters churning with huge rocks, logs and the remnants of homes uprooted by earthquake-triggered waves that slammed into the northern tip of Sumatra island on Sunday.
"I'm looking for my nephew. He's the only one who's lost," said Haikal, 23, crying as he lifted up the plastic covers.
The UN said it had offered to send disaster response teams into restive Aceh, off-limits to foreign aid workers because of a long-running insurgency. A government official said Aceh would be open from tomorrow.
Thousands huddled in mosques, tents and larger buildings a day after the 9.0 magnitude earthquake.
The main hotel in the stunned city, where the Health Ministry has said 3 000 people died, was half-collapsed.
Some minor looting of TVs and handphones was seen at abandoned shops.
Elsewhere volunteers laid the bodies of children in rows under sarongs at makeshift morgues. Some were put in white fish crates or wrapped in plastic sheeting.
"It smells so bad ... The human bodies are mixed in with dead animals like dogs, fish, cats and goats," said Marine Colonel Buyung Lelana, head of an evacuation team in Lhokseumawe city on the northern coast.
The Indonesian death toll from the disaster had reached 4 912, officials said, adding many more were still missing.
Officials rushed to bury the dead to prevent disease and comply with Muslim tradition.
"I am hoping there are still enough coffins available," said Mustofa, mayor of Aceh's Bireuen regency.
Military officials said they feared the toll would rise once contact was established with remote areas in the province.
Aceh is under civilian emergency rule as part of efforts to quell a separatist insurgency. Foreign aid agencies have been barred from operating there for safety reasons.
Mohamed Saleheen, acting UN resident representative and humanitarian co-ordinator in Indonesia, said the world body had offered to send disaster response teams into Aceh.
"We have made ourselves available to the government and we are just waiting for the government's response on how they would like the United Nations to co-operate," said Saleheen.
Sunday's quake was the world's fourth-biggest since 1900.
The UN warned of epidemics within days across southern Asia if health systems could not cope, saying the effects of disease could be as bad as the tsunami itself.
