Banda Aceh looks to future four years after tsunami

Silence lies over the vast field, which has become the last resting place of 14,262 victims of the disastrous December 26, 2004 tsunami. 

A young couple with their baby have come to commemorate their loved ones who lie buried here. For those who have survived the catastrophe, the memories are as vivid as if the disaster had happened only yesterday. 

"I was convinced that the end of the world had arrived, the end of human civilization," recalls Juanda, 32, who lives in the coastal town of Calang, a few hours drive south of the provincial capital. 

Some 80 per cent of the town's inhabitants perished during the disaster four years ago.

Juanda was able to save himself by climbing up a nearby hill together with several hundred other townspeople. 

Fauzan Azimsiyah, 25, lived in the provincial capital when The tsunami arrived and was able to climb up to the second floor of a nearby house. 

As the waters surged rapidly, he saw a woman with a baby struggling in the flood and was able to pull her to safety, too. It took hours for the water to run off, after which Azimsiyah went to look for his missing sister and his two nephews. 

"I desperately combed the streets, but never found them," he says, his voice breaking. 

The tsunami, which cost almost a quarter of a million lives in the region, hit Banda Aceh particularly hard, because it was very close to the epicentre of the seabed quake which triggered the wave. 

Official Indonesian statistics have presented the whole scope of the disaster in sombre figures: 170,000 dead, 550,000 homeless, 116,000 houses, 3,000 kilometres of roads, 2,000 schools, 2,000 bridges, 700 hospitals and clinics and 2,000 ships and boats, all destroyed. 

   The wreckage of the gigantic ship "Ltd Apung 1" lies several kilometres inland from Banda Aceh. The powerful tsunami waves carried it there. 

   In another part of the provincial capital, a wooden fishing trawler has come to rest on a house roof. The crew of 59 was saved. That's why the trawler has been nicknamed "Noah's Ark" by the locals. 

   Blue pillars all around the city mark the flood levels with white rings. Some of them are 3, even 4 metres above ground. 

   After the deadly waves, yet another wave engulfed the globe: an unprecedented wave of willingness to help the survivors. The Red Cross and Red Crescent societies collected almost 1 billion dollars in cash donations worldwide. 

   The money helped to build 1,491 houses, 32 schools, 7 hospitals and to clean 1,700 freshwater wells in Banda Aceh. 

   It was used to train teachers, build vocational colleges and - last but not least - educate both adults and children on what to do to protect them selves better in the future, because the next natural disaster might be just around the corner in earthquake-prone Banda Aceh. 

   When The tsunami struck it unwittingly interrupted a civil war that had raged in the province for decades. 

   But the catastrophe prompted the rebels to make peace with Indonesia's central government in order to facilitate the region's re-building and rehabilitation efforts. 

   "The region has great potential," says UN coordinator Satya Tripathi. 

   "It boasts thousands of kilometres of coastline with ample fishing grounds, fertile land for farming, and currently 10,000 to 12,000 people are undergoing training in computer sciences and business accounting. All the region needs now is foreign investors," he explains. 

   Things are also improving in Calang and the neighbouring town of Teunom, which lost more than half of their combined 17,000 inhabitants to the disaster. 

   Juanda is currently working as a translator and paramedic assistant for the Red Cross. A new house was built for him, just like for his neighbour, fisherman Abdullah Sefara. 

   Sefara proudly points out his first large purchase since the disaster, a refrigerator.

 On its top perches a teddy bear. It once belonged to his little daughter, who perished in the flood.//dpa