Survivors of Indonesia floods frustrated with gov’t response
A month after floods devastated the Indonesian island of Sumatra, killing over 1,100 people, frustration has been growing among survivors at what they see as the government’s inadequate response to the disaster.
White flags, meant as a sign of distress, have been raised along roads in cities and villages in Aceh province—the hardest-hit when a cyclone made landfall on Nov. 26. Around half of the disaster’s death toll was reported in the province.
Aceh Gov. Muzakir Manaf dubbed the deadly floods a “second tsunami,” comparing the disaster to the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami that left more than 160,000 people dead or missing in Indonesia’s westernmost province.
While the Indonesian government accepted international help in the 2004 calamity, it emphasized self-reliance for the Sumatra floods, refraining from declaring a national emergency, a requirement for entry of foreign humanitarian aid.
The floods have inundated parts of Aceh, North Sumatra and West Sumatra provinces. Half a million people remain displaced, according to the country’s disaster mitigation agency.
In the village of Sekumur in Aceh province, only around a dozen houses were seen standing in an area where hundreds were located, heavily covered by mud, with the rest swept away or flattened. Aid only slowly began to arrive in Sekumur, which has been cut off by the flooding.
‘National disaster’
“We want the government to declare national disaster status for this tragedy, so that we can have a speedier recovery,” said Fauzi, 35, a farmer who not only lost his house but also his crop in a hectare plot of land.
Suraiya, a senior adviser to the Aceh governor, has warned that the flood disaster may surpass the tsunami disaster in terms of the extent of the areas affected.
“If we just depend on our government, it will take maybe 40 years or 30 years to rebuild what we lost in Aceh,” Suraiya said.
A recent report on the situation in the three Indonesian provinces, cited on the website of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said the “most urgent need is water.” The local drinking water company has not yet resumed functioning and water sources in the community, such as wells, are still covered with mud, with clean water unevenly distributed.
Environmental activists have blamed years of severe deforestation in the provinces as a factor exacerbating the disaster.
