INDONESIA: The people of Aceh continued to struggle yesterday to bury their dead and face up to the devastation left by the tsunamis that smashed into the Indonesian province.
Authorities were still trying to reach some of the hardest hit areas, including coastal plains closest to the epicentre of the 9.0 magnitude earthquake that struck off the western shores of Aceh on Sunday and sent a series of tsunamis racing across the Indian Ocean.
Officials confirmed a death toll of more than 25,000 in Indonesia. Mr Purnomo Sidik, national disaster director at the Social Affairs Ministry, said deaths in Aceh alone had reached 19,000, with 9,000 of those attributed to the provincial capital, Banda Aceh. There were about 10,000 deaths in Meulaboh, the south-coast town nearest to the epicentre, he added.
Surveillance from flights over the town indicated it had been "wiped out", with up to 80 per cent of buildings destroyed, raising fears for the fate of the area's 100,000 residents.
The military said it had sent three aircraft-loads of emergency supplies to Aceh. The UN in Jakarta said 175 tonnes of rice arrived in the province late on Monday, and that it expected to fly in medical supplies today.
But even in those regions of Aceh easiest to reach, the scale of the devastation and slow response by the Indonesian government and the international community left the victims of Sunday's disaster struggling to recover. "There are many dead bodies around this area that haven't been evacuated," said one man, as he pointed towards the remains of what used to be a teeming residential district of Banda Aceh.
"We haven't received any help from the government since Sunday," he said. "No medical assistance or any other help." In Banda Aceh, to which commercial flights resumed on Monday, decomposing corpses were lying in the streets, which were covered with mud and debris.
On a field, about four times the size of a soccer pitch, more than 1,000 bodies lay where people had died while attending Sunday exercises and games.
"My son was doing an exercise here, so I am sure he is still here," said Nurjanah, sobbing as she searched the field for her son's body.
"We haven't eaten for two days. We have to get out of here," said Irawan (35), whose optician's practice was destroyed.
"Where is the assistance? There is nothing. All the government are asleep," said Mirza (28).
Whole battalions of soldiers and police are among the dead and missing. Separatist rebels have announced a ceasefire while people search for loved ones.
North of the city centre, along the Kreung Aceh river, scavengers went to work yesterday alongside survivors searching for lost relatives in the ruins of houses.
Oriswandi Idris was looking for his 40-year-old sister and her seven children outside the crumpled remains of her home.
"I've checked all the bodies and I can't find her. My young sister is here but I don't know where she is."
Nearby, Emi (42), was wandering, still in shock, through the rubble near what used to be her home, searching for the body of her son, Joanda (9), who was torn from her husband's hands by the tsunami.
Some parts of Sumatra have still not been heard from or reached by rescue crews.
One of the worst hit cities was Meulaboh, about 150 km (90 miles) from the quake's epicentre. The mayor Mr Tengku Zulkarnaen said three-quarters of his city had been washed away.
"We can't calculate it all now, but a rough estimate is tens of thousands dead," he told El Shinta radio yesterday. - (Financial Times Service, Reuters)