“Everything is mud and debris”: how floods drown entire towns in Indonesia

The floods ravaging parts of the Indonesian island of Sumatra have swept away entire towns, as is the case of Aceh Tamiang. “Everything is covered in mud and debris,” Intan, a resident of the municipality, told EFE this Thursday, among the most affected by a disaster that has left at least 770 dead and hundreds missing. According to today’s data from the local disaster agency Basarnas, all the inhabitants of the town, about 310,000 residents, have been affected by the floods, which in the municipality (located in Aceh province, in the western northern tip of Sumatra) have killed at least 39 residents. Intan, a 33-year-old History teacher, tells EFE that several of her friends and family are now in shelters, after landslides and overflowing water swept away entire neighborhoods in Aceh and in the provinces of North Sumatra and West Sumatra.

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“Many houses were swept away by the water and many suffered damage. The water level (in Aceh Tamiang) varies depending on the place. We had to evacuate a two-story house (and go to the highest point), because the flood filled the first floor,” he relates. There he was with 80 other people for five days, until the waters began to recede and he could return to his home. While they were waiting for the storm to pass, Intan saw the body of a man. “I only know that he is an old man on the side of the road. He had been there for several days and was only covered with a cloth, but there is no information about his family,” he recalls. According to their description, the roads “are covered in mud and debris”, while numerous homes remain uninhabitable due to being flooded or filled with sediment. That, he continues, is the case of his mother, whose house suffered damage in the midst of the disaster. In addition to their mother, her sister and brother-in-law are also being taken in by relatives. Their cases have not been computed in the district’s displaced persons registry, totaling 60 by the authorities as of this Thursday. Aceh Tamiang – with a surface area of 1,956.72 square kilometers, a size similar to that of Tokyo – was isolated from last week and access was cut off at least until Wednesday due to flooded roads or accumulation of debris on the roads. The Ministry of Public Works team is trying to clear access to the city to intensify the distribution of aid, which has so far been limited to deliveries by boat or with excursions that last for hours. Regarding this, Intan says that some humanitarian aid arrived in her village this week, so she and her neighbors received potable water and medicine, but she doesn’t know where those donations came from. For the moment, he assures, the electrical service has not been restored and problems persist in connecting to the internet.