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Clearing the Way
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BANDA ACEH, INDONESIA
Sitting by the entrance of her tent, Kartini, aged 35, tells a joyful mother’s tale, a gleaming nugget amid the desolate stories of loss that abound in this city.
Until the tsunami, she lived in Ulee Lheue, a bustling port area for which a major ring road was planned. But she lost her home and 15 family members, including two daughters and a son, in the calamity.
Like countless parents, a distraught Kartini spent weeks searching for her missing children. After 26 days, she learned that her 17-year-old son, Firman, was still alive—in a village several kilometers away. A tearful reunion followed and Firman has rejoined his parents in the refugee tent.
Now that a child has returned from the dead, Kartini wonders when and where her diminished family can start life afresh.
Large chunks of land around Ulee Lheue have been under water since the tsunami, including the ferry terminal from which roll-on-roll-off vessels plied back and forth to the nearby island of Sabang.
“They had planned to build a ring road from the ferry terminal to the sea port of Malahayati but there’s no land anymore,” says Olly Norojono, an Asian Development Bank (ADB) Project Economist (Infrastructure), pointing to the remains of the port, a skeletal outline of a terminal building and a hydraulic movable bridge.
Mr. Norojono met with officials from the Regional Infrastructure Office of Aceh Province in late February to compile a list of priority rehabilitation and reconstruction projects for roads and bridges impacted by the tsunami of 26 December 2004.
A joint Government-donor report estimates physical damage to the transport sector in Aceh Province at $395 million, with losses of $147 million.
In response, ADB is offering two kinds of assistance. One is to use $6.5 million of surplus funds from its ongoing Road Rehabilitation Sector Project. The other is to provide large grant funds from the Asian Tsunami Fund to rehabilitate and reconstruct roads and bridges.
The first kind of funds can be disbursed quickly and could be used for paying, for example, the contractor that cleared Banda Aceh’s main roads of thick debris in the aftermath of the tsunami.
"They had planned to build a ring road from the ferry terminal to the sea port of Malahayati but there’s no land anymore“
- Olly Norojono
ADB Project Economist (Infrastructure)
In the city itself, several roads and bridges were extensively damaged by the earthquake and giant wave. Most of the city’s drains are still clogged, leading to floods after heavy rain.
So powerful was the tsunami that it pushed the concrete Lampriet Bridge on the national road 30 centimeters inland. Despite this, the bridge is still open to traffic and Mr. Norojono, an engineer, says the deck can be returned to its original position if the foundation remains sound.
One of the most stunning sights testifying to the force of the tsunami is that of a massive power barge that now straddles roads in the center of town after being carried 2.5 kilometers (km) from its coastal berth.
Outside the city, the most seriously affected road is the 240-kilometer stretch along Aceh Province’s west coast from Banda Aceh and Meulaboh. This narrow coastline took the full brunt of the tsunami, which erased 80 km of road, seriously damaged another 120 km, and destroyed 90% of 171 bridges.
As a result, the road south is open for only 20 km, and the bizarre sights along the way include a bridge tossed into a river, a distant white mosque amid a sea of rubble, and a coal barge and a tugboat locked in a surreal embrace high on a beach.
During the mission, public works officials provide poignant reminders of the impact of the tsunami at a personal level.
As the four-wheel-drive jeep passes through one flooded road—the damage was caused by the earthquake and aggravated by clogged drains—Mr. Zahruddin, head of planning for the regional infrastructure office, points out a ruined house, and says it is his home. Four members of his household were lost.
A little further on, Mr. Zahruddin remarks that this is where his parents-in-law used to live—they, too, are gone, along with their families.
It is nearly 6 pm when the mission takes a break to pray in the Baiturrahman mosque, the city’s main place of worship.
Legends have already grown around the mosque, which was barely affected by either earthquake or tsunami. A Chinese resident claims he saw thousands of birds lift the mosque off the ground—and was so impressed that he converted to Islam. Such inspirational stories find many believers during these times.
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