Starvation fears grip flood-ruined Indonesia
Aceh governor Muzakir Manaf said response teams were still searching for bodies.
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Aceh governor Muzakir Manaf said response teams were still searching for bodies.
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BANDA ACEH (AFP) — Further heavy rain threatened Indonesia’s flood-ravaged island of Sumatra on Saturday as the governor of one hard-hit province warned that the death toll could climb beyond 883 because of starvation.
A chain of tropical storms and monsoonal rains has pummeled Southeast and South Asia, triggering landslides and flash floods from the Sumatran rainforest to the highland plantations of Sri Lanka.
Some 1,770 people have been killed in natural disasters unfolding across Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam since last week.
Indonesia’s national weather agency said rain could return on Saturday to the provinces of Aceh and North Sumatra, where floods have swept away roads, smothered houses in silt and cut off supplies.
Aceh governor Muzakir Manaf said response teams were still searching for bodies in “waist-deep” mud.
However, starvation was one of the gravest threats now hanging over remote and inaccessible villages.
“Many people need basic necessities. Many areas remain untouched in the remote areas of Aceh,” he told reporters.
“People are not dying from the flood, but from starvation. That’s how it is.”
Entire villages had been washed away in the rainforest-cloaked Aceh Tamiang region, Muzakir said.
“The Aceh Tamiang region is completely destroyed, from the top to the bottom, down to the roads and down to the sea.
“Many villages and sub-districts are now just names,” he said.
Aceh resident Munawar Liza Zainal said he felt “betrayed” by the Indonesian government, which has so far shrugged off pressure to declare a national disaster.
“This is an extraordinary disaster that must be faced with extraordinary measures,” he told Agence France-Presse, echoing frustrations voiced by other flood victims.
“If national disaster status is only declared later, what’s the point?”
Declaring a national disaster would free up resources and help government agencies coordinate their response.
Analysts have suggested Indonesia could be reluctant to declare a disaster -- and seek additional foreign aid -- because it would show it was not up to the task.
Indonesia’s government this week insisted it could handle the fallout.
