aftermath

_introduction
While doing our research in Banda Aceh, we are kindly hosted by the UNDP Waste Management Group, under leadership of Nigel Landon. He has generously allowed us to use his office space during our stay in Indonesia. This is where we have met pak Faisal Ridwan, Program Officer (Equipment) within this UNDP unit, former Oxfam employee and native from Banda Aceh. He has been helping our research significantly, by providing us with several reports on the tsunami recovery process, photographs he made himself, and by joining us in conversations on this convoluted topic. This text attempts to summarize the insights coming from our interaction with Faisal.

(downtown Banda Aceh, 5 min. before tsunami - image by Faisal Ridwan)

_boxing day 04
Faisal described the commotion right after the massive earthquake preceding the December 26th tsunami in 2004. He at that moment happened to at home. Realizing many buildings must have collapsed he headed to downtown Banda Aceh on his motorbike, and had his photo camera with him. The pictures he took show many people in the streets, amazed by the force of the quake, looking at the 5 story hotel that turned 4 stories, and the 4 story supermarket that turned 3 stories. The bottom stories just seized to exist, and my guess is the same goes for the people that were in there. The rest of the buildings look battered and beaten, with cracked columns and cantilever shaders broken off. Within five minutes after the severe shock people came rushing by, yelling that “the water is coming”. Faisal got on his bike and raced inland, not knowing exactly what he was running from, trying to reach his family and get them to safety. Fortunately he, unlike many many others, succeeded.

Six hours after the tsunami hit, Faisal and his wife return to their home, hoping they would find milk and diapers for their nine month old daughter, forgetting about their own needs. They find all their doors knocked out of the walls, their furniture trashed, knee-deep mud throughout the house and visible on all walls a waterline at 1.5 meter high. Faisal and his family were spared, but now faced new threats. They had attempted to clean up for a couple of hours when they realized they could not stay in the city, where disease and lack of supplies would soon reign. Their house flooded, their devastated city rapidly turning into a biohazardous menace, with thousands of dead people lying around. They had to leave this place, so headed to the house of a relative. Many others had done the same, meeting there.

(downtown Banda Aceh after tsunami - image by Faisal Ridwan)

_the days after
There are no words to describe the images Faisal showed me that he took in Banda Aceh the days right after the tsunami. I’ve looked at them almost a month and a half ago, and now writing about it makes me nauseous, shaken up and baffled all over again. The Krueng Aceh river that flows through downtown, stashed up with an endless ten meters high pile of blackened dead people, mangled up in building debris and fishing boats. Streets filled with mud, debris, toppled cars and more dead people. Buildings bashed into rubble. Black water everywhere. Indescribable. Unforgettable.

Banda Aceh rapidly turned into a ghost town, with more than a third of its inhabitants killed, and the rest of them on the run from the approaching epidemic in the traumatized cityscape. The Indonesian national army rushed in to stop the people from the surrounding villages pillaging the abandoned houses and stores. Surprisingly the same was done by their sworn enemies from the Acehnese separatist army GAM, who left their hideouts in the mountains to come and help. Apparently the incomprehensible dimensions of this disaster made the combatants forget to fight for the first time in over thirty years.

Aside from the numerous dead, there were many injured, often severe, but there was no medical care available. Faisal told me he went driving around the city with an injured lady on the back of his motorbike, searching in vain. Two days later she was dead. He and his family decide to use the last bit of gasoline left in their car to get them to safety with relatives in the city of Sigli, 120 kilometers east of Banda.

_upwards
Faisal and his brother wanted to help, realizing they were not the only ones looking for baby supplies in Banda. While the armies made a start with clearing the city, Faisal’s brother started transporting fuel and instant foods to Banda and Faisal focused on bringing baby and feminine supplies. He came in contact with more and more people wanting to apply the money they had into helping the population, making his initiative almost develop into a NGO. Banda Aceh by now had been noticed internationally, and pushed by the overwhelming amount of money raised globally to help the tsunami victims, the city was gradually invaded by almost five hundred help organizations. This made Faisal meet with Oxfam, and he started working for them to extend his aid work, supplying the city with new water and sanitation systems, and later with shelter. After quite some time with Oxfam he transfers to UNDP, where he still works today.

Now, after almost four and a half years of working in tsunami relief, he is thinking maybe this year will be the last. He will have to go back to his original profession in building construction. But before that, he has the wish to further study engineering. He has noticed the need for proper engineering skills to help develop Aceh and make use of the growth potential with all the natural resources Aceh has. Hopefully his savings and some luck will take him to one of the colleges in Malaysia, Australia or even Delft at some point.

(Lhok Nga after tsunami - image by Faisal Ridwan)

_in general
It took just a few days before the international community realized the full extent of the destruction in Aceh, but to the survivors those days seemed ages. No drinkable water, no food, no shelter, no sanitation, circumstances grown ups can deal with for a day or two, but babies, elderly, handicapped and the ill are seriously threatened by. Especially these more vulnerable people require immediate attention, otherwise the chance of them perishing in the aftermath of a disaster is considerable.

Looking back at the recovery process from the tsunami, it is obvious that the physical transport of goods into a disaster area anywhere in the world is time consuming, and the first aid attempts will have to be undertaken on a small scale by the locals. The same lengthiness goes for gathering sufficient funds and organizations available for the recovery and reconstruction. Because money and effort is gradually coming in from all over the world, the web of aid agencies in Banda Aceh got very very complicated. Then the coordination agency established by the Indonesian government a good four months after the disaster (BRR) encountered the impossible task of unraveling this complex knot. Because of this needless complexity of the aid structure, a lot of aid effort has gone to waste to senseless initiatives.

With the limited means and people available in a disaster struck area right after the disaster has hit, it is very difficult to develop a clear image of what type of help is needed, and, equally important, of what type of help is available locally. It might therefore be a good idea to always have an international specialist team on standby, ready to be flown in anywhere in the world where instantaneous aid coordination is needed. Their task would be nothing but mapping the local supply and demand of aid, and communicating this picture clearly to anyone involved. Apparently the same development can be recognized in the aid work as we have seen in the way armies work; to be able to win battles the emphasis gradually shifts towards intelligence.