A survivor carries a bag of salvaged items at an area devastated by flash flood in Aceh Tamiang on Sumatra Island (AP photo)
Devastating floods and landslides have killed more than 900 people on Indonesia’s Sumatra island, with authorities warning that starvation in remote, cut-off areas could push the toll even higher. The country’s disaster management agency confirmed the death count in a briefing on Saturday. A succession of tropical storms and intense monsoon rainfall has battered large parts of Southeast and South Asia over the past week, triggering landslides and sudden floods from Sumatra’s rainforests to Sri Lanka’s highland plantations. Across Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam, natural disasters have claimed over 1,790 lives. In Indonesia’s Aceh and North Sumatra provinces, raging floodwaters have ripped apart roads, submerged homes in thick sediment and severed supply lines. Search teams in Aceh continue to retrieve bodies from “waist-deep” mud, according to provincial governor Muzakir Manaf, as reported by AFP. The gravest concern now, officials say, is the growing threat of hunger in villages still unreachable days after the disaster. “Many people need basic necessities. Many areas remain untouched in the remote areas of Aceh,” Muzakir said. “People are not dying from the flood, but from starvation. That’s how it is.” He added that whole communities in the forested Aceh Tamiang region had been obliterated. “The Aceh Tamiang region is completely destroyed, from the top to the bottom, down to the roads and down to the sea,” he said. “Many villages and sub-districts are now just names.” Residents describe harrowing conditions. Fachrul Rozi, who fled from Aceh Tamiang, said he and others spent a week packed inside an old shop with minimal supplies. “We ate whatever was available, helping each other with the little supplies each resident had brought,” he told AFP. “We slept crammed together.” Frustration is mounting among survivors who feel the disaster response has been inadequate. Aceh resident Munawar Liza Zainal said he felt “betrayed” by Jakarta’s reluctance to declare a national disaster — a move that would free up more resources and streamline agency coordination. “This is an extraordinary disaster that must be faced with extraordinary measures,” he told AFP. “If national disaster status is only declared later, what’s the point?” Some analysts say the government may be reluctant to seek foreign assistance out of concern it could appear incapable. Officials, however, maintain that the situation remains manageable. As rivers recede, the scale of destruction in parts of Sumatra is becoming clearer. Images from Aek Ngadol in North Sumatra show residents salvaging mud-soaked furniture from devastated homes. Sri Lanka’s death toll climbed to 607 on Friday, with authorities warning that renewed rainfall could trigger more landslides. Thailand has reported 276 deaths, Malaysia two, and Vietnam at least two fatalities linked to landslides. While monsoon rains are essential for the region’s agriculture, climate change is intensifying these weather patterns, making them more erratic and dangerous. Both environmentalists and Indonesian officials say rampant logging and deforestation have exacerbated landslides and flooding in Sumatra, worsening the impact of this year’s catastrophe.
