BANDA ACEH, Indonesia, Jan. 2 -- A week after a tsunami devastated the western end of Sumatra island, the streets of this provincial capital are beginning to show a semblance of rejuvenation, with markets reopening, power and water restored to nearly half the city and a paralyzing fuel shortage ended.
The most notable progress came over the weekend as the Indonesian government dispatched scores of bulldozers, backhoes and trucks to excavate mountains of sludge and rubble from long stretches of downtown streets. The effort has not only helped spark the first stirrings of commercial activity but also aided the military's search for at least 30,000 bodies still believed to be decomposing amid the debris.
Relatives of tsunami victim Ainal Mardiah, 52, carry her body through rubble in Banda Aceh, Indonesia, where 30,000 are still missing.
(Peter Dejong -- AP)
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A massive international drive is taking shape in response to the earthquake and resulting tsunami that left nearly 140,000 people dead in 12 countries, including more than 94,000 in Indonesia. Governments have pledged $2 billion for relief, and a summit in Jakarta is planned for later this week to discuss the distribution of the aid.
For the second day, U.S. Seahawk helicopters flying from the USS Abraham Lincoln off Sumatra delivered food and water to remote villages along the west coast of Aceh province, part of the largest U.S. military operation in South Asia since the Vietnam War. U.S. Marines were also heading to Sri Lanka.
But the relief efforts in Indonesia remained uneven, slowed by poor coordination among military, civilian and foreign officials.
In Banda Aceh, the hardest-hit areas remain buried under rubble and impassable by vehicle, but neighborhoods farther inland were largely untouched by the flood. The main impact there was the result of severed utilities, a collapse of local government following the deaths of many public employees and a shortage of food and fuel usually imported from the rest of the country.
By Sunday, however, the Ulee Kareng market about 10 miles from the coast had grown so busy that knots of traffic formed on the main street. Despite reports of price gouging, shoppers jostled for space in front of several dozen stalls erected under blue tarps and corrugated metals roofs. Vendors hawked leafy greens, bananas and oranges off low wood-plank tables and live chickens out of woven cages. Hills of brilliant red chili peppers rose from the gravel on the roadside.
"It's still difficult to get enough supplies here, but more are coming," said Eddy Yahya, 20, a coconut peddler.
Vendors reported that the activity was the result of increased truck shipments from Medan, in North Sumatra province, which provides Aceh with much of its goods. The road connecting Medan with Banda Aceh was largely spared by the tsunami.
Kamarudin Zulfkifli, 29, who sells plastic bags of sugar and cooking oil, said the first shipments came Friday, followed by many more a day later. Muhammed Jafar, 30, whose egg trays were stacked a dozen high on the sidecar of his bicycle, said he also began receiving supplies from Medan on Friday.
The goods, however, are now commanding inflated prices beyond the reach of many. Some items cost 50 percent more than usual, and sugar and cigarette prices have doubled, shoppers said.
"So many of us lost a lot of stuff. Our houses were completely destroyed. We don't have enough money to buy goods," lamented Sulaiman, 47, wearing a frayed white shirt over baggy purple pants. He clasped a plastic bag of coconut oil and dried fish.
Budi Atmadi Adiputro, a top Indonesian official overseeing relief and reconstruction efforts in Aceh, said electricity, knocked out across Banda Aceh by the floods, had been restored to about 40 percent of the city, though service was not constant. Power was back on along the entire east coast of Aceh but not down the west coast, which was closer to the epicenter of the earthquake that triggered the tsunami. Clean drinking water was being supplied to the same areas that were receiving electricity, he added.
Though cellular telephone service had been restored in much of the province, land lines still did not function. Adiputro attributed this mainly to the deaths of three-quarters of the telephone company's 50 employees in the province.
The floods had also crippled Banda Aceh's road network, tearing up pavement and blockading streets with wood and metal rubble, household belongings, overturned cars, beached fishing boats and mud. By Sunday, Adiputro said, about 70 percent of the roads were passable.
Officials had also resolved the fuel shortage, which had stalled some relief operations and created gas lines up to half a mile long. The tsunami had destroyed two of the province's three tank farms, interfering with the distribution of fuel to Banda Aceh and the west coast, according to Adiputro. Now fuel for the capital is being stored in tankers off the coast, he said.
After a week, the shock that blanketed Aceh along with the rubble has started to lift. Drivers, who late last week were flouting basic regulations, had begun stopping for red lights. A few barbershops and video game parlors had pulled open their shutters alongside the numerous workshops for repairing cars and motorbikes that survived the tsunami.
Indonesian officials said that the east coast of Aceh was doing even better, with some schools resuming classes.
The west coast, however, was in far worse condition. Some communities, where more than two-thirds of the residents were thought to have died, were so badly battered that survivors would have to be relocated, according to Alwi Shihab, Indonesia's senior welfare minister who traveled by helicopter Sunday to the city of Calang and a neighboring village.
Calang, Shihab said, "is going to be an abandoned city. It is not going to be a living area anymore." He added that the government would eventually rebuild the roads and other infrastructure so residents could return, but until then they would be evacuated to Banda Aceh or Meulaboh.
In Banda Aceh, the Ulee Kareng market recorded an important milestone in its recovery Sunday with the reopening of the Jasa Ayah coffeehouse. Survivors crowded into the shop, famed for selling the province's best coffee, took their familiar places around nearly two dozen marble tables and sipped short glasses of the renowned brew. Mostly men, they nibbled on fried cassava balls, perused the latest death tolls in the local newspaper and smoked. Some simply watched the street, looking out at the mounting traffic and the green tents of a refugee camp just beyond.
A pair of notices had been posted on the otherwise bare mustard-colored walls of the coffeehouse advising customers that service would be suspended for 20 minutes whenever it was time for Muslim prayer. This was a new practice at Jasa Ayah but one readily understood.
"The signs mean we should learn a lesson from the disaster," said Yusraini, 23, a harried waiter with slicked back hair and tight black jeans. "We should be close to God."
