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January 1, 2005
How do you aid a town that has ceased to exist?
Topics: Southeast Asia Earthquake and TsunamiHere we learn of a place where every day large numbers of survivors and relatives of dead and missing victims of the tsunami travel a difficult journey to look for the bodies of their loved ones while others are simply hoping that they might meet family members who are only now coming down from the hills. According to the article, there is another thing that draws these people back, the importance of a place they once called home. The tragedy of Leupueng is much more than just the destruction of buildings and lives, but that every 'home' has been destroyed, there are not even reference points to rebuild the town. Returning locals not only don't find their loved ones, they can't even find where their homes once stood.
-The Age (Australia) January 2, 2005
In a town of 10,000 people, nothing is left standing,
reports James Meek in Leupueng.
It is not easy to obliterate an entire town. Something should
always be left standing - a mosque, a concrete shed or a storeroom
that the survivors can shelter beneath and make a nucleus around
which to rebuild.
But Leupueng has been obliterated. In this town of 10,000
people, nothing vertical and square-edged is left. From one end to
another, Leupueng and most of its inhabitants have vanished as if
they never were.
(Click image to enlarge - Survivors wander through Banda Aceh looking for anything that can be salvaged. Leupueng, the closest town to it, was one of more than two dozen towns in the Aceh province devastated by the tsunami. Photo: AP)
The town's faint remaining imprint could only be reached by boat
and a three-hour trek on foot over streams, through debris and mud,
and along the remnants of the coast road that used to run south
from Banda Aceh to Meulaboh, in north-west Sumatra.
(Click image to enlarge - location of town that no longer exists)
Hard as it is now to believe that a week ago there was a town called Leupueng, the enormity of what happened here can only be grasped by understanding that it is just the nearest razed town to Banda Aceh. More than two dozen similar small towns are strung out along the coast to Meulaboh and beyond, packed hard between the seashore and the rock walls of steep forested hills and defenceless against the tsunami.
If they have all suffered Leupueng's fate, and those who have flown over the region suggest they have, the death toll in Indonesia alone could easily surpass 150,000.
For Leupueng, the question of emergency aid is irrelevant. How can you send aid to a town that has ceased to exist?
But every day scores of survivors and relatives of the dead and missing make the hard journey to this place. Some say they are looking for the bodies of loved ones; others hope they might meet family members who are only now coming down from the hills.
There is another thing that draws people back: the importance of home. The tragedy of Leupueng is not only that buildings and lives have been destroyed but that every home has been destroyed.
There are no reference points to rebuild the town. Some locals who returned not only failed to find their relatives, dead or alive, but failed even to identify the place where their homes had stood.
"I had no idea it would be this bad. I thought it would be a normal flood," said one returnee who had been in another part of Indonesia when the tsunami hit.
His surname was the same as the town's, Leupueng, Elias Leupueng. His parents were missing.
His group was just entering what had been the outskirts of the
town. He pointed out the levelled outline of an Islamic boarding
school where 150 students had attended. Painted on the tarmac of
the road was the neat outline of a pedestrian crossing, now leading
from nowhere to nowhere.
Continue reading...
Posted by Hyscience at January 1, 2005 10:36 PM
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