In Aceh, they count lost loved ones on both hands

Banda Aceh is a place where people cannot sleep, where the word "water" provokes spasms of terror and where grown men weep in each other's arms.

Banda Aceh is a place where people cannot sleep, where the word "water" provokes spasms of terror and where grown men weep in each other's arms.

The bustling coastal city was close to the epicentre of the earthquake that unleashed monstrous waves across the region last Sunday. Aceh province, in north-western Indonesia, has emerged as the ground zero of the disaster, with the death toll at 80,000 and rising.

In the provincial capital, Banda Aceh, despair and starvation stalk the ravaged streets. Locals count on both hands the loved ones they have lost. They scavenge for dirty rice amid the mud-caked rubble. Foreign aid is starting to trickle in but it has been slow to reach the thousands camping under tarpaulins, refugees in their own city.

The heavily populated seafront areas look like a grim moonscape, while the city centre is a ghastly version of Venice, with the debris of shops and houses washed by dank, filthy flood waters where bloated bodies float. The locals wear surgical masks, to ward off the insufferable stench and to protect against disease.

On Sundays, the Acehnese like to relax at home or visit the beach. They were sitting targets when the earth shuddered violently beneath the sea. As their houses crumbled, they ran into the streets, to be met by two enormous waves that roared through, tossing boats into the gardens of buildings two miles inland.

When nature boiled over, 21-year-old Kasmidar was blown on to the top of a palm tree, out of reach of the raging waters. But she has not seen her husband or mother for five days. Eight months pregnant, she sits in Banda Aceh's sole functioning hospital, nursing a shattered leg. "I have cried every night," she said. "Now I have no more tears."

Arani Humar was taking a shower at the time. "I ran outside when the earthquake happened," he said. "Then I realised my family were still in the house. When I tried to go back to rescue them, the water came from the sea. My wife, five children, sister and two brothers are dead. I live by myself now. I have nobody anymore."

Everyone in Banda Aceh fears a repetition of Sunday's events. Three small earth tremors yesterday sent people running amok in panic. Water, once a source of life, has turned into a demon. "I can't sleep properly any more," said one elderly man. "In my dreams, the water is coming again." Many survivors have fled, taking refuge in villages in the mountains. The streets, formerly snarled by traffic, are still. The Baiturrahman mosque, the pride and joy of the Muslims at Aceh, was untouched and stands in proud isolation, encircled by ruins. The soul of the city is intact but its heart has been ripped out.

A vision of hell awaits at the harbour, a once picturesque spot where locals bought fresh crab at the busy market and dropped fishing lines over the stone bridge. Gaily coloured wooden fishing boats bob in the water next to 100 decomposing bodies frozen in poses of dread. The pavement nearby is slippery with mud, which is peppered with personal belongings, broken pieces of homes and putrifying matter.

More corpses litter the banks of the river Aceh. They are the parents, children, husbands, wives, sisters and brothers of local people. The bereaved stand on a bridge, scouring the features of the dead for a hint of something familiar. The corpses are becoming harder to recognise as humans as the time passes. Many of these may never be properly identified.

The plight of survivors has yet to be addressed. Supplies are piling up at Banda Aceh's small airport, where commercial planes bringing grieving relatives from remote districts jostle for space with military aircraft laden with aid. But bureaucratic incompetence is preventing food and clean water from reaching those who need it most.

A sense of resentment is building as the desperation grows. At a tented camp in the grounds of a mosque, Sugarifuddin said that the homeless were receiving just one meal of instant noodles a day. "I have no money to buy extra food," he said. "I have only the clothes that I am wearing."

The hospital, meanwhile, is desperately short of staff, medicines and beds. Badly injured people groan on stretchers in the front office, where the floor is covered in blood.

The situation is worse outside Banda Aceh, where few supplies have been distributed because of petrol shortages and damage to roads and bridges. The west coast, which was worst hit, is cut off and has only just received its first planeload of aid.

The death toll in one western town, Meulabah, is believed to be 40,000. Some 80 per cent of its buildings were destroyed. These are figures that are difficult to comprehend, and it is little wonder the Acehnese say they are living in a nightmare from which they are still waiting to wake up.In Banda Aceh, daily life stopped, as if frozen in time, when the water swept through the city and killed so many people. No one is fishing or going to work, schools are closed, and no shops are trading.

But the locals pray five times a day. "As Muslims, we don't say this is a disaster," says one. "We say it is a test from God. He wants to know how strong our belief, how strong our religion is."