Nigel Sizer’s tour of Pride campaign sites in Aceh Province reveals that much devastation remains after two years.

This morning we drove south from Banda Aceh along the coastal road that skirts the beach hit by the full force of the Asian tsunami. Entire villages were almost completely wiped out. Not a single house or tree was left standing. Women and children in particular were killed in huge numbers as they tried to shelter inside homes.

[photopress:Aceh_4_Coconut_palms_tsunam.jpg,full,centered]

The remains of coconut palms two years after the tsunami. 

The road is still a potholed mess. Disputes over payment for the land the new road is built on have led to long delays in getting it surfaced. But bright new homes are speckled through the fields and along the beach. Signs advertise that the homes have been built by many different organizations – the Turkish Red Crescent, various Islamic foundations, Oxfam, and so on. But the settlements felt eerie and empty. Some houses had families sitting on their verandahs, but most were empty. So many people were killed here during that cataclysmic ten minutes that much of the land and new homes have no one claiming ownership.

It’s a really beautiful stretch of coastline, with a fabulous white powder sand beach, and hills covered in tropical forest coming down to the edges of the rice fields behind where the villages had once stood. Communities are slowly rebuilding. But the wrecked foundations of the older homes, ripped up trees, and crushed cars are still as apparent as the memories of that awful scene two years ago.

No related posts.