Pak Safrir's Story

When we visited Samatiga District yesterday in West Aceh, we met the son of the village chief of Suak Seuke village, Safrir Mahdi. Pak Mahdi is 29 years old and he has been coordinating the recovery effort for the 175 surviving families in his village. His village lies close to the sea. He told us his harrowing tale when the tsunami struck on the morning of the 26th. Fifteen minutes that he will never forget.

We were sitting on the broken column of the 1857 mosque where Pak Mahdi was praying along with five other women when the wave roared in. The wave was so high that Mahdi could not see the 5 meter high coconut trees nearby. The column broke and he got swept away. The five other women were lost forever. It was then that he lost consciousness. When he came to several minutes later, he found himself some 100 meters away desperately holding on to a broken podium from the destroyed mosque along with 7 elderly women. Two of them were then swept away by the storming current. Luckily for Mahdi and the other women they latched onto a huge rumbia tree that was floating by and managed to ride out the fury of the wave that died down soon thereafter.

Thankful to be alive though he lost his mother in the tsunami wave, Mahdi is dedicated to re-building his large village. From what we could see no building in the vast area that we surveyed (the entire village is 3 km. wide and 6 kms. long) was standing except for one mosque. That mosque was saved by the trunk of a huge coconut tree that broke the wave as it rolled through that part of the village.

Mahdi told us of a story that when the villagers were assisting in removing rubble for the reconstruction of a large bridge that passed through their village they found some skulls. By the time the excavation was over 110 skeletons were discovered! It is certain that similar tales will surface in the months ahead as more heavy rubble is unearthed and removed.

Dada Shiilabhadrananda, Banda Aceh