ACEH in PERSPECTIVE
Imagine waking up on Boxing Day in a sweat dreaming that the Welsh coast from Anglesey to Tenby had been wiped out by a giant wave in one frightening hour, and you have a better feel for what happened to the West Coast of Aceh. Imagine too that much of the provincial capital (a Cardiff on Anglesea), had floated away, and begin to grasp the scale of what happened to the city of Banda Aceh.
For several days TV coverage of Aceh amounted only to maps illustrating that the epicentre of a powerful earthquake was nearby, but no hard news or pictures. It’s difficult to bear if you have friends in Tenby, but the existence or destruction of that town is not even mentioned.
Then five days later on New Year Eve your worst fears are confirmed by the first report of a helicopter survey of the coast south of Anglesea. ‘There were four towns of 10,000 people on this coast where ………..tower.’ You know intimately of a radio station on a high headland near Tenby, perhaps someone you know has survived.
But why does the next few days bring no further news? For the simple reason that the infrastructure has been blown away, no roads, no electricity, no communications even for mobile phones, so dependable in many disasters. But the people who survived have quite different priorities especially lack of drinking, or even clean water and pain from terrible injuries.
Individuals all over the globe are sickened by the scale of this natural disaster and cash floods in a great wave of sympathy to charities. But getting it to those in need in Aceh is a huge problem?
Only the military have the capacity in ships, helicopters, fuel, field hospitals and men. Only they can operate effectively and quickly in such an environment for they bring their infrastructure with them. Pity that it’s mostly tied up in Iraq! Then the news that the dynamic much-maligned American military have ordered ships to drop their Christmas visit to the Mediterranean and sail quickly to the effected area. Now they are stationed off the wasteland of Aberystwyth, the nearest point to the epicentre. Their helicopters are the first to ferry food, water and medicines to able-bodied groups of traumatised survivors.
Estimates of the death toll rise daily, idle speculation really because the true numbers will never be known. Now they have exceeded a magic threshold, 120,000 Welsh Nationalists are feared dead. But news emphasis remains on the identification of ten thousand Europeans lost whilst on beach holidays in spots like the Algarve and the Canaries, when the wave struck.
Then news of a kind no one needs. The Prime Minister of Western Europe has diverted his army from the relief effort to complete the ongoing suppression of the Free Wales Army, who are said to be taking advantage of the chaos.
Far fetched? Yes - dragged half way across the globe. But then Wales does roughly match Aceh in terms of area or population, and in the same way Britain does equate to Sumatra, which in turn is just one of the islands which make up Indonesia.
BRIAN CORBETT 532 words
Imagine waking up on Boxing Day in a sweat dreaming that the Welsh coast from Anglesey to Tenby had been wiped out by a giant wave in one frightening hour, and you have a better feel for what happened to the West Coast of Aceh. Imagine too that much of the provincial capital (a Cardiff on Anglesea), had floated away, and begin to grasp the scale of what happened to the city of Banda Aceh.
For several days TV coverage of Aceh amounted only to maps illustrating that the epicentre of a powerful earthquake was nearby, but no hard news or pictures. It’s difficult to bear if you have friends in Tenby, but the existence or destruction of that town is not even mentioned.
Then five days later on New Year Eve your worst fears are confirmed by the first report of a helicopter survey of the coast south of Anglesea. ‘There were four towns of 10,000 people on this coast where ………..tower.’ You know intimately of a radio station on a high headland near Tenby, perhaps someone you know has survived.
But why does the next few days bring no further news? For the simple reason that the infrastructure has been blown away, no roads, no electricity, no communications even for mobile phones, so dependable in many disasters. But the people who survived have quite different priorities especially lack of drinking, or even clean water and pain from terrible injuries.
Individuals all over the globe are sickened by the scale of this natural disaster and cash floods in a great wave of sympathy to charities. But getting it to those in need in Aceh is a huge problem?
Only the military have the capacity in ships, helicopters, fuel, field hospitals and men. Only they can operate effectively and quickly in such an environment for they bring their infrastructure with them. Pity that it’s mostly tied up in Iraq! Then the news that the dynamic much-maligned American military have ordered ships to drop their Christmas visit to the Mediterranean and sail quickly to the effected area. Now they are stationed off the wasteland of Aberystwyth, the nearest point to the epicentre. Their helicopters are the first to ferry food, water and medicines to able-bodied groups of traumatised survivors.
Estimates of the death toll rise daily, idle speculation really because the true numbers will never be known. Now they have exceeded a magic threshold, 120,000 Welsh Nationalists are feared dead. But news emphasis remains on the identification of ten thousand Europeans lost whilst on beach holidays in spots like the Algarve and the Canaries, when the wave struck.
Then news of a kind no one needs. The Prime Minister of Western Europe has diverted his army from the relief effort to complete the ongoing suppression of the Free Wales Army, who are said to be taking advantage of the chaos.
Far fetched? Yes - dragged half way across the globe. But then Wales does roughly match Aceh in terms of area or population, and in the same way Britain does equate to Sumatra, which in turn is just one of the islands which make up Indonesia.
BRIAN CORBETT 532 words
