A TSUNAMI GENERATION REBUILDS

Riven by disaster, survivors mend broken lives
By John Donnelly, Globe Staff | February 6, 2005

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia -- Six weeks after a monstrous earthquake and tsunami wiped out thousands of communities along the shores of the Indian Ocean, leaving 300,000 dead or missing in 11 countries, daily tremors still rattle buildings and workers wearing masks still pull hundreds of bodies a day from the rubble.

But even in Aceh Province, which accounts for nearly 70 percent of the known deaths, the central focus has perceptibly moved from dealing with disaster to rebuilding broken lives.

In seaside towns and cities, life is split along the tsunami line: One side is brown and gray, a tangled mass of death and destruction; but inland, just beyond where the flood waters stopped, the homes are intact and the economy is booming, fed by the huge amount of relief donations.

The sea barreled in on the morning of Dec. 26 and then retreated, like a lion returning from its kill. The flood line defines the aftermath, especially in the emerging debates about whether people should return to areas that the sea swallowed or settle farther inland.

That and other lessons learned from the tsunami will play a role in the next phase of rebuilding as well as give relief agencies and governments around the world new ideas in grappling with future disasters. Among early lessons, drawn from scores of interviews over three weeks with disaster specialists and survivors in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and Thailand:

A military role. In Indonesia, the US military saved thousands of lives after first landing with eight Navy helicopters at 10 a.m. on New Year's Day at Banda Aceh's airport, civilian disaster response specialists say. The military crews knew nothing more than the last name of an Indonesian general. But two hours after arriving, they began flying into areas that had been severed from the world, dropping food, water, and medical supplies to desperate survivors. Civilian relief agencies say the logistics capabilities of militaries, particularly the US military, should be a central element in responding to future disasters.

Disaster management. The lack of comprehensive information about continuing problem areas remains a roadblock in relief delivery, making it impossible in spots to coordinate the hundreds of aid organizations, militaries, and individuals. Some places have received negligible aid; others have received too much.

At the Bang Muang camp, north of Phuket Island in Thailand, so many clothes were donated from foreigners and Thais that tons of jeans, dresses, and T-shirts are rotting in the rain and sun, and becoming a new health hazard; rats and fast-breeding mosquitoes have moved in. But less than 10 miles from the huge relief centers in Banda Aceh, as well as along the northeast coast of Sri Lanka, several communities have yet to receive any help outside of a few deliveries.

Medical response. International groups rushed in hundreds of doctors and tons of medical supplies, but after a few days, the health workers had only scattered injuries to treat. ''You either survived the tsunami, or you didn't," said Daniel F. Curran, 36, who directs Harvard Business School's program on humanitarian leadership and advises Mercy Corps, one of the largest charities working in tsunami-affected areas. Trauma surgeons who had flown halfway around the world found that their help was not needed after a few days. First responders should be trained, specialists say, to assess medical needs and issue a more specific call for assistance.

In Thailand, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka, among other countries, an unexpected source of help came from hundreds of thousands of volunteers arriving to help their countrymen -- a flood of mercy, say veterans of emergency aid, that they had never witnessed before.

Such compassion from home and abroad -- outsiders pledged a record $8 billion -- has become the foundation of recovery. But a visitor to any tsunami-affected zone, from the east coast of Somalia to the east coast of Sumatra, will immediately see the pain that remains.

Parents are searching for missing children. Some fishermen plead for boats; others fear the sea. Entire communities have lost their wells, and farmers' fields have been tainted by the saltwater deluge.

In some communities, people fed up with waiting for assistance have begun the rebuilding themselves, angry over being forgotten.

''I've been trying to keep myself busy," said Mohamed Budi Permana, 31, whose 15-month-old girl, Anya, is among the 120,000 missing in Indonesia. ''It's not that I don't want to deal with my daughter. I just can't always deal with my feelings."

While walking through a camp of displaced people recently, Permana asked a mother whether he could hold her 6-month-old daughter.

After a few moments with her in his arms, he began to weep. ''I wanted to see how it felt to hold a child," he said later. ''I also wanted to see how strong I was. The mother told me the child lost her father, and that was too much for me."

An unfathomable scale From afar, it may seem perplexing that 42 days into the largest humanitarian operation in history, Indonesia is still grappling with the recovery of bodies and thousands of parents throughout the region still go from camp to camp to look for their children. But aid specialists say that the scope of the disaster overwhelms the response in many ways-- Indonesia has not had enough bulldozers to dig through the rubble, for instance -- and that the rebuilding effort will take years.

''People think of the immediate response that you build the houses and a few months later life will be back to normal," said Scott Faiia, CARE's country director in Sri Lanka. ''That's not going to happen. You need to think of a much longer time frame -- think of a couple of years, think five years."

The area of devastation on Aceh Province's west coast alone covered an area from Boston to Atlantic City. In all, the tsunami affected 20,000 miles of shoreline.

''The scale of this disaster was almost like a shock to the body," said John Budd, a UNICEF official in Indonesia.

In the first weeks, he said, the US military became the key player.

''In the beginning, what made the difference was the commitment of the American military and other militaries to use their logistics. It was an amazing success, staggering good results," Budd said. ''The Americans saved thousands of lives."

On New Year's Day, Navy Captain Lawrence D. Burt, 46, commander of an air wing aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, landed at the Banda Aceh Airport, met with the Indonesian Army commander, explained the US capabilities, starting loading supplies onto helicopters, and took off.

Soon, he said, he was standing on a soccer field somewhere along the west coast of Sumatra island.

''The whole area looked really destroyed, like there was no life there," he said. ''Then, people just started coming out of the rubble. They were desperate for water, for food, for anything we could give them."

That kicked off a nonstop helicopter lifeline to the communities by the US Navy and Marine Corps, which is now winding down. In 34 days, the Americans dropped 23 million pounds of supplies.

A welcome global response Relief agencies say they are very thankful for the militaries' help, but they think it is time for them to go and to allow the civilians to take full responsibility.

''The worry is that the Indonesian military will say, 'Other militaries were delivering aid, and so we can do this as well,' " said Stephen Gwynne-Vaughan, CARE's assistant disaster coordinator in Indonesia. ''They are not trained for these humanitarian missions. And you tell me there isn't something a little bit odd of a guy with a gun, saying, 'You have this food.' "

But many veterans of disaster relief said the performance of the militaries in Indonesia and to a lesser extent Sri Lanka -- where American troops rebuilt bridges and roads -- makes a strong case for inviting the troops in the immediate days following earthquakes, hurricanes, or famines.

Already, militaries from around the world are prepared for a number of jobs appropriate in vast emergencies. In Indonesia, for instance, Australian troops brought in a desalination system and provided drinking water for most of Aceh; and the Indian Navy anchored a hospital ship off the west coast of Aceh, treating people who were flown in by helicopter.

''Another important thing that happened here is that the host government allowed them in," said Patrick Johns, 55, who was in charge of Catholic Relief Service's emergency efforts in Aceh. ''The Indonesians were amazing in that respect. We have had 200 choppers flying overhead all day long for weeks. Short of an invasion, you never see anything like this."

Alwi Shihab, the Indonesian minister in charge of the response to the tsunami, said in an interview that his government quickly realized it could not go it alone -- as India, which had about 7 percent of the death toll of Indonesia, decided to do.

''No government could handle a disaster of these biblical proportions," he said as a US helicopter rose in a field behind him, kicking up a cloud of dust and grit. ''We decided that if we wanted to save the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, we would welcome anyone who would help."

In the first days after the tsunami, ethnic and religious groups put aside their conflicts to assist relief efforts. But now, the old divisions are reasserting themselves.

Even as Indonesian separatist rebels, the Free Aceh Movement, met with government officials last month in Finland, skirmishes continued a few dozen miles from the tsunami zone. The Indonesian military says it has killed 200 rebels in the Sumatra hills since the Dec. 26 catastrophe.

In northern Sri Lanka, rebel commanders no longer are coordinating efforts with the government, creating confusion and mistrust between the sides that fought for 20 years before a 2002 cease-fire.

''At a time like this, it is natural for man, no matter what religion or nationality, to get closer to each other," said Matthew Asirwatham, 50, who heads the efforts of the Tamil Tiger rebels in the eastern district of Trincomalee. ''But this has not happened here."

And in Thailand, the government's extraordinary rebuilding efforts on Phuket Island, a favorite tourist destination for its beautiful beaches, has not extended to its far south, a heavily Muslim region where many yearn to secede from the country. In the fishing village of Trang, according to international relief workers, more than 12,000 people have received almost no aid.

Along Sri Lanka's eastern coast, in a fishing village called Irrakkakandi, population 2,300, help also has been slow to arrive. The village president, Jailabdeen Ansar, 39, suspects the lack of aid may be connected to the area's long sympathies to the Tamil Tigers.

Although the tsunami killed only one adult and two babies in Irrakkakandi, 95 percent of the fishing boats were damaged or lost to the sea.

''We see so much on TV of all that aid coming in, but we wonder why along this whole stretch of coast, we are receiving almost nothing," Ansar said.

'Nothing is happening here' One day last week, a group of friends from outside Colombo, the capital, joined with a senior military officer in the area to see if they could lend a hand in Irrakkakandi.

''No one knows what is going on in this country," said Noel Rodrigo, 41, who works for the national air carrier, Sri Lankan Airlines. ''Nothing is happening here. It's been one month!"

The volunteers hired a local boat builder to begin fixing about 15 of the village's 50 damaged boats. The next day he was sitting inside the first boat, using his chisel to slowly scoop out torn pieces of fiberglass.

A few days earlier, 1,500 miles to the east in the village of Leupung, Indonesia, Mohamed Ali Agam, 27, stood in a truck bed on the only road to his home, as dust swirled around his face.

Agam was leading a high-level government delegation to explain what had happened there. The village is about 5 miles south of Banda Aceh, the base for the government's relief efforts and those of about 75 nongovernmental organizations. But Leupung was cut off from the city by a downed 50-foot bridge and had received almost no aid.

Of the village's 12,000 residents, Agam said, 11,200 died. Nothing stands but the tallest trees. Three hundred yards inland, an imposing rock face forms a natural outer edge of the village, and here, Agam told the officials, 500 to 1,000 bodies remain in the debris. Even where he stood, 100 yards away, the smell of death was overpowering.

''What do you want me to do with the bodies?" said H. Azwar Abubakar, Aceh's deputy governor. ''Some people say, 'No, don't bury them, let them be.' Would that be OK?"

Agam stepped backward -- the idea was shocking to him as a Muslim, as his faith dictates that great care be taken to bury bodies as quickly as possible after death. He quickly regained his composure.

''No, sir, we should not leave them there," Agam said, looking at the rock wall and the tangle of debris below it. ''They are our brothers and sisters."

The deputy governor mumbled something and shook his head in agreement. Days later, the government issued an announcement that burials would stop at the end of February.

It seemed to signal that it was time to move on, a sentiment shared by many, but not all, in the tsunami zone.

On Thailand's Phuket Island, 250 miles northeast of Banda Aceh, amateur videos of the tsunami show the waves smashing over beach chairs, careening into resort lobbies, and people screaming for help.

It remains one of the most vivid recordings of the horror of the moment.

But by late last week, workers and volunteers had cleared off much of the debris, numerous hotels were open, and scores of tourists were sunning on the white sand or wading into the calm turquoise water.

It seemed the picture of a holiday.

''It feels strange, though," said Lars Blomquist, 31, a flight attendant for Novair, a Scandinavian airline that resumed flights to Phuket yesterday for the first time since shortly after the disaster. ''But it feels good, too. Maybe it's like closing a book. They tried to fix the place as soon as they could. They were very quick."

Still, he said, he could not help thinking about that moment six weeks ago, and what it must have felt like.

''A lot of images pop up for me. Scary pictures. People crying," Blomquist said. ''And then I look at the sea, and when it comes in a little fast, I become worried a little. Maybe this will take some time."

John Donnelly can be reached at donnelly@globe.com.