Amiruddin's Stories

We visited the Neuheun Camp, 13 kms. Northeast of Banda Aceh town three days ago. We found 1731 people in the camp, in makeshift tents. There was only one toilet in the camp which was situated on the side of a mountain spread out over 1 km. of green country side. We walked around the camp and took photos to get a feel of the situation. In spite of their tragedy people seemed reasonably okay, with kids smiling as we took their photos. We dropped off 30 kg. of dried fish which at least would provide them one nice meal apart from the daily saltless meal of noodles and biscuits. But the flow of food has improved since that first visit. We dropped off another 800 kg. of rice and 200 kg. each of salt and sugar yesterday.

We went with Amiruddin a naval student, age 24 to tour his destroyed village of Neuheun which is the largest in the sub-district of Masjid Jaya in Aceh Besar district. Amiruddin had a few stories to tell about the tsunami. He pointed to a lone standing structure about 500 meters ahead before which were flattened houses and ravaged fields. He told us (through a translator) that this was a "sacred" house as saintly people were buried here. Amiruddin believes that was why the house was saved. We stood on a vast expanse of flattened trees and homes where two waves of the tsunami met and wiped out hundreds of people. It was hard to conceive of that nightmare as we gazed on a calm sea 400 meters away. We walked with Amiruddin around the village, surveying the damage. We saw the 200 meter narrow passage that people ran along to escape the oncoming waves of the tsunami. Some made it and some didn't. Amiruddin and his 7 brothers were lucky. On the fateful morning of the tsunami he thought it strange to see a large flock of birds over the village. Suddenly, he was surrounded by 1 meter high water and he started running. The water reached up to his stomach and was slowly rising. He grabbed onto a tree and waited there until the waves subsided. Now he and his family are keeping up in the Neuheun camp. But as there is no kerosene at the moment, so the womenfolk walk the three kms. from the camp to fetch firewood for their meals. Amiruddin was in the last six months of his naval training at the Akademi Maritime Aceh, in Banda Aceh town. After the tsunami when he checked out his school, he came to know that all the instructors had disappeared and he understood that only 200 of the original 2000 students had survived.


Every coastal town in Aceh has bullitin boards crowded with pictures of missing people.

The Lamnga village on the other side of the Abadun river that separates the two villages was worst hit. When villagers managed to cross the river to escape to the mountains they found that the waves had inundated that side too and many of them drowned. Amiruddin explained that most of his fellow villagers were either subsistence fishermen or farmers. Fifty were either dead or missing. Fifteen of them lost their boats in the disaster. His eyes lit up when we told him that whatever honey he could gather from the nearby hills we would buy from him. He promised us that the honey would be pure. Just like him, I thought. Under gentle prodding, Amiruddin told us about his friend who was swimming with the tsunami after it had washed away his home. He grabbed a tree. That too got washed away... finally he was saved by a lone piece of strong wood bobbing in the water.

A third friend Wadi, 24 yrs. who was fishing at the time of the earthquake, was surprised by the huge numbers of fish literally hopping out of the sea that day. But when the tsunami hit good fortune swiftly transformed into bad. By some miracle Wadi too took shelter of a nearby tree and waited out the monstrous waves. Then he understood what his dream two days earlier foretold. He saw a giant bird flying from the sea towards the mountains of his village and back again to the sea.

Dada Shiilabhadrananda